


Encroachment

by BlackUmbra



Category: DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:19:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 61
Words: 216,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1929909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackUmbra/pseuds/BlackUmbra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mystical artifacts are disappearing from museums all over the world, and the Titans have been enlisted to aid other organizations to track them down. Raven becomes caught up in something graver while investigating, but with the help of an old enemy turned new ally, she'll strive to defeat them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The H.I.V.E. Five are beaten in a fight over a mysterious gemstone.

#  Ø. Prologue

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

 

The night of the new moon was incredibly fortuitous for the group of thieves moving through the museum.

Five of them move through the thick shadows, making not a sound.

They finally reach their goal, a large display case full of sparkling gems and jewels.

The tiny pieces of card-stock beneath each one all report some mystical properties, or some sultan that supposedly had originally owned them.

For the former H.I.V.E. students, though, only the money mattered at all.

To the right buyer, the gems could be worth a small fortune each, and that was if they just turned out to be pretty chunks of rock. If their powers were anything close to what was claimed, then they could be set for life by the new group setting up shop all around.

A man with a cowl in the form of an owl steps out of the shadows, his black cloak revealing little more than the coverage had.

A powerful, red glow rises from the hexagonal gemstone hanging from his neck, and the glow becomes like an aura, wrapping around his body.

A pool of darkness coats his extended hand, and the missing section above his elbow appears behind the display case's glass.

From his open palm, the red light dispels, shooting through the wiring in the glass and shorting the wiring to the security system.

Giving a satisfied nod, seemingly to nobody but himself, he retracts his hand and points at one of the other lurking shadows.

A hulking man in golden armor steps up, grabbing the glass on either side.

With a grunt of effort, he lifts the heavy plexiglass, lifting it high just long enough for Kyd Wykkyd to grab up the gems with a bag offered by another of the concealed figures.

As he begins lowering it from above his head, a spark of light floods the entire room, revealing them all and causing grunts of pain at the unexpected blindness.

A wave of pink sparks launches out from somewhere in the large room, slamming into the large man's elbows.

While no pain is felt, his elbows suddenly begin shaking violently under the weight.

With a grunt, his sweating hands slip from the glass.

The case comes crashing violently down atop his head, the glass shattering against his skull.

Blood pools on the museum carpet as he falls, unconscious, to the ground seconds later.

The other four quickly come together as a group, looking for where the attack had come from.

"Looks like you've lost your edge, Wykydd," a throaty, feminine voice claims.

The voice echoes along the silent air of the room, giving the group nothing to work with.

Red eyes move about the shadows, glaring in silent recognition.

"Who're you?" a man with dark mocha skin and a mechanical, cyclopic eye demands.

"Ah, I'm hurt, See-More," the voice mocks, again not giving them anything to help them locate the threat.

A hand quickly moves to the side of the visor and turns a dial, the green glass turning dark red.

The orb rolls around, looking for anything giving off a heat signature.

When he finally finds one, it slams into him, the wave of neon pink sparks making the glass explode.

Smoke and glass shards fly through the air as the man flies backwards.

Blood rolls down from beneath the shattered visor, glass imbedded deep in the unconscious thief's face.

While the three are staring at their two fallen colleagues, a lithe form moves like a ghost through the shadows, ducking and rolling between cases and tables.

The woman finally reaches their backs, and launches at them like a coiled spring releasing.

By the time one of the thieves sees her moving through the darkness, she already reaches her target.

A grunt sounds in the air as a fist slams solidly into his jaw, sending him into a spin to the ground.

The figure lands with him, her knee pressing into his throat.

When the man's eyes roll backward, she rolls off, coming to the feet of the only woman in the thieves' team.

As she comes up to swing at the woman, she jumps into the air, large white wings rising from her spine and smacking the assailant away, through the table previously housing their stolen goods.

The wood shatters, driving splinters into the tough material of the assailant's jumpsuit as she smashes into the ground and rolls several times.

"What're you doing here, messing with us, Jinx? I heard you got locked away," Angel mocks, her wings fluttering to keep her above the ground.

Grunting, Jinx pushes herself to her feet, dusting the wood shards off.

"Forgot about those. Sloppy," she sighs to herself. "I don't care what you do with your free time. You two can run along… As soon as you hand over that toy around your neck. It's entirely too dangerous for you, Wykkyd."

The mute man simply glares at Jinx, a slight smirk curving his lips.

"You got the drop on us, _Lucky_. It won't happen now that we know who we're dealing with," Angel growls.

She goes into a spin in the air, swinging her wing out to try slamming it into Jinx's throat.

The air screams in resistance of the violent motion, warning Jinx of the attack before it's even begun.

With a pulse of motion, she jumps into the air and comes down atop the wing, still mid-arc.

Her weight presses down on the sensitive flesh, and Angel gives a pained scream as she's dragged from the air.

When she crashes, Jinx cartwheels atop her wing, coming down with her legs atop the downed woman's shoulders and a hand around the back of her throat.

Her expression is stony, making Kyd Wykkyd's smirk vanish in an instant.

"Magical gem. _Now_ , Wykkyd. You try to teleport her from under me, I go with her, and who knows if my hand, currently wrapped around your girlfriend's throat, might end up twisting in the sudden motion?" Jinx demands.

Her tone, far more than her words, are what convinces Wykkyd that Jinx has certainly changed since quitting the H.I.V.E. Five.

Nodding, he unsnaps the chain around his neck and pushes his hand through a portal, the gem landing at Jinx's feet.

With a grim smile, Jinx grabs the gem up with her free hand and wraps the chain around her fist, making sure that he can't pull it form her.

With that done, she steps away from the downed woman and works her way in jumps back to the window she'd entered through.

She doesn't threaten the two not to follow her or attempt revenge. Her eyes alone have ensured she doesn't need to…

 

 _Editor's Notes_ :

For the record, Angel is a cartoon-exclusive character, seen only two or three times, but since Jinx in this story has nothing to do with the H.I.V.E. Five, I'm writing with the assumption that Kydd Wykkyd would simply recruit other villains in the place of the ones who quit.

The story is set within the universe of the 2000's Teen Titans cartoon, mostly if not entirely centered on events taking place with Raven and Jinx with some occasional forays into other characters' minds, but also has a lot of elements of the DC comics universe.


	2. Suspicion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven decides to investigate on her own after discovering Earth's negligence in safeguarding dangerous artifacts.

#  I. Suspicion

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

The Titans sit inside their command room, the heart-shaped face of the sorceress Zatanna Zatarra filling the screen before them.

A large, multi-page document made up entirely of a list rests with each of the five, the mood gloomy.

"What're all these things?" Cyborg asks, scratching his head in confusion at the list.

A lot of the items don't even seem to have an English, or entirely human, name on the papers, and the oldest Titan is finding it frustrating, to say the list, trying to guess at what they're looking at.

None of them miss the glare their Goth friend gives the list, her eyes becoming ever narrower with each page she noisily flips through.

"There's been a string of break-ins, mostly in museums and private collections," Zatanna states, waving her own copy of the list around.

Nightwing opens his mouth to voice his thoughts on that, and with a smirk, the sorceress raises her hand, cutting him off.

"Normally, not really our thing, at least not as a group, I know. We were leaving it to the police, for a while now. Things have changed."

" _A while_ ," Raven repeats, staring emotionlessly at the sorceress with an upraised eyebrow. "Really?"

A slight blush feathers across her cheeks, and Zatanna forces a cough to cover her embarrassment.

"Once we saw a pattern, and started paying attention, we found that the first in these thefts was roughly two months ago."

"Okay, so it's a lot of stolen objects. Obviously," Beast Boy states, slapping the pile of papers on his knee. "Still not seeing what makes it something you'd be looking at, dude."

Zatanna notices Raven's eyes returned to the list, continuing to become more and more visibly irritated as she goes.

Noticing, Koriand'r looks at Raven with concern.

"What troubles you so, friend Raven?" she inquires, lacking subtlety as usual.

A slight wince crosses Raven's expression, so quick that nobody is sure it ever really existed at all.

"Oh, nothing, Star, just finding astonishment at how terrible this planet is at safeguarding items that are not meant for mundane, human eyes," Raven muses.

"Whaddya mean, Rae?" Beast Boy inquires, failing to notice the darkening blush on Zatanna's cheeks.

"Oh, I think that the one on monitor duty for the Justice League should explain Justice League objectives," Raven responds, smirking at the sight of Zatanna's discomfort.

"Zee?" Nightwing asks, turning his attention back to the screen.

"Ugh… Right… Every item you see on that list is a magical artifact. A dangerous one. Most of them are supposedly ancient relics, and every one of them has some story of terrible power and or origin. The thefts are happening globally, and now, the Justice League has almost every spare member they can find hunting down leads. Hell, I'm only doing monitor duty, as Raven put it so kindly, right now because even Manhunter's out somewhere."

"Wait, so you mean someone's been amassing magical weapons for possibly over two months, and we're getting on this just  _now_?" Nightwing asks incredulously.

Smirking, Raven returns her attention back to the list, flipping through yet another page.

"Hey, we're not talking amateur magicians with parlor tricks here. We've been busy dealing with tracking down rumors of the Injustice League coming back, and a lot of the museums didn't even notice the items missing until we knew to look."

"So… what? They teleport the items out and put fakes in their place?"

"No, that would make it simple," Zatanna sighs. "A lot of the people just didn't even remember there being the items we looked for in the first place, until we brought it up. There's no traces of who's doing it that we've been able to find thus far, and it's too far-spread to just be one or two people."

"Psimon?" Raven inquires with a bored tone, not looking up from the list.

"Possible, but we haven't heard of anything about the guy since the Brotherhood of Evil was thawed out," Zatanna says with a shaking head.

"So what're we lookin' at, here? This seems like any rich magician would have the motivation for it," Cyborg muses, eyes closed in concentration.

"We're hoping for the best. It's been two months, so it might be a bored collector who wants powerful items to show off at parties. But that isn't likely, and the fact that it's been going on for so long, with such a large list of stolen items, says that it's far more likely to be for something bad.  _Really_ bad."

Something on the list catches Raven's eye, and all of them cringe away from her as a look far harsher than just irritation colors her otherwise stoic expression.

She voices nothing, though, plans already forming in her mind on how she's going to deal with the item that caught her attention.

"A lot of these are from around New York, especially Gotham and Jump," Raven notes with a rough monotone, once more appearing utterly calm.

"Yes, they are. So we think that it would follow logically that a lot of the items are  _still_  in Gotham, and Jump, and a number of other areas. Hence this call, much as I'd love for it to be a social one," Zatanna sighs.

"We'll get on it," Nightwing says, straightening in his seat.

"Well, then, I leave it in your capable hands," Zatanna says, seeming less than inclined to hang up.

"Cyborg, you and Beast Boy head out to a museum that's been hit heavily, and see if you can't find something. A blip in the video, a familiar scent, something. Star, you and Raven-"

"Actually, I think that Starfire and you should team up for this, Nightwing," Raven interrupts, the uncharacteristic interruption surprising their leader.

"Why? No offense, Star," he adds quickly.

"Simple," Raven says as she stands up, letting the list fall back to the table, its contents already memorized. "You cannot fly, but you are a detective. It makes more sense to have the two of us going in different directions, as we can surely cover more ground quickly as separate groups with flight. That, and I know of many of the items on this list, and know of places to begin looking in avenues that, if you or Star were to accompany me, would likely end up causing more work than needed."

With an acknowledging nod to Zatanna, whose mouth is agape at her bluntness, her body gets wrapped in a coating of black.

Without another word, she teleports away from the room…

"What was that about? Haven't seen Raven act like that in a long time," Cyborg muses, staring at the empty floor where their teammate had stood.

Zatanna quickly flips through her list to the page Raven had reacted to, and her eyes travel down the list.

The League had organized the items by language of name origin, followed by country or planet of origin, before the details on where they'd been held and what their potential powers were.

It was a thorough list, and it made finding the item that had set Raven off very easy.

Only one item on the list had the word Zandia in it, and seeing the country's name, Zatanna gave a curse.

"You guys should keep an eye on your friend," she warns, glaring at the item listed.

"Huh? Whyzzat?" Beast Boy asks with a frown.

"You know the deal with her whole  _demon_  thing, right?"

Nightwing tenses, eyes narrowed slightly.

"We do."

"Oh, cool the stare,  _Richard_ , it doesn't impress me," she says, laughing at his blush.

The others repressing snickers of their own, Zatanna lifts her own list up to the monitor and points at the offending item.

"This thing, right here? The Gem of Blood. It comes from a nation in the Baltic Sea named Zandia, a relatively small island, which is overtly controlled by the Church of Blood."

"Wait. As in Brother Blood?" Cyborg asks, a slight growl forming in his throat.

"Brothers, really. The one you guys tussled with would have been the 8th in the line. They all run the Church, in a cycle of son killing father to take over the powers, the rule, and the magical shawl that supposedly came from the Last Supper."

"So he wasn't just a psycho, then," Cyborg muses. "We took him down a few years back. Why's the gem got anything to do with Raven?"

"The Church of Blood is a cult. One which, around twenty-two years ago, played around with a being calling itself Skaath."

The Titans collectively pale at that, Nightwing's eyes going wide as the connection forms.

"Figured that'd make it click for you guys," Zatanna sighs. "Long story short, the gem's bad news, and either Raven's looking to settle a score or make some deal, and either way it's bad news."

Nightwing sighs, running his hand erratically through his thick black hair.

"Maybe it'd be a good idea to get some help on this. Maybe a mystic with a bit more experience than Raven?"

Cyborg glares at the leader, but his rant is forestalled by a raised hand.

"That list is huge. If Raven's really out there going after one specific thing, ditching us so we won't get in her way, that's the kind of diversion of resources we don't need if we want to help on this. Apparently, the museums here and in Gotham are inept at realizing that the public isn't a good place to put dangerous weapons. Raven seems to know where to track down at least a few, and she was right about covering more ground."

Cyborg's mouth closes as the logic works on him, his head reluctantly nodding in agreement.

"So, think you could pop on down and give us a hand?" Nightwing asks, turning back to the monitor.

"If for no other reason than keeping on eye on her, you guys might need me. Y'know, objectiveness and all that jazz," Zatanna says with a shrug.

The monitor screen flashes with light, and as it clears, Zatanna is no longer standing in front of the monitor…

_Editor's Notes_ :

I'm going to say right now that I actually do like Zatanna as a character. That said, she also can be rather sanctimonious, and you can bet that her interactions with Raven will deal with their first meeting.

That said, I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Either way, let me know, whether your opinion thus far is positive or negative. See you next time!


	3. Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven hunts for the Gem of Blood.

#  II. Hunting

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven lands silently on the ground of a shadowed alleyway, irritation showing through her usual mask of stoicism.

" _A gem belonging to a cult based around blood rituals, and they just let it sit behind a thin sheet of_ glass _! Unbelievable_ ," she growls mentally, stomping unseen out of the alley.

The moment she'd seen the item on the list, she knew it was her priority. If they were so careless as to let items that dangerous just sit around, then she was going to choose which ones got priority from her for retrieval.

She'd heard rumors of it, of course, but had just assumed that if something like it existed, then it would either be in a vault somewhere or with the Church of Blood yet.

" _After all, who would be stupid enough to let a gemstone connected to a cult known for blood rituals, and my_ father _for Azar's sakes,_   _go utterly unprotected? Well, apparently this planet_ ," she retorts to herself, keeping her senses open as she mentally debates the stupidity of it all.

She had thought that with the likes of Doctor Fate in the Justice League, items like that would be kept in an inter-dimensional pit where none could reach them. The sheer volume of dangerous items listed as stolen, however, had quickly changed her opinion on Earth's skill with treating dangerous weapons.

The gem itself wasn't outwardly dangerous. Just a piece of Zandian rock, cut and refined, which had the innate ability to increase the powers and abilities inherent in whoever wears it.

The fact that the Church, and Trigon, were connected to the gem meant that it was undoubtedly more dangerous.

She had seen rumor, in some of her readings in the past, that the gem was the very magical battery used to supply the portal needed for Trigon's initial entry to Earth, partial though it may have been.

" _If a mystic of real skill, with any level of true power, got their hands on that thing, it could be a potential weapon of mass destruction. And they just sit it in a_ museum _!"_ she shouts mentally, turning down another alleyway.

Letting her senses expand, she forces her mind away from its ire, looking for her target.

The auras in the buildings around her fill her mind, the taste of their mundane emotions leaving her irritated.

Then, she catches what she was looking for, the specific taste she remembered from their last bout with Brother Blood VII. The Church left a very distinctive reek on the soul of humans, which, while unpleasant to find, made finding it very easy when you know to look.

That she had a partial roster of its members, and a general area of their residences, didn't hurt her odds, certainly.

Raven slowly lifts off the ground, flipping her hood over to cover her face as she rises.

By the time she reaches the exterior of the floor she needs, she feels the inky darkness of her soul-self wrapping soothingly around her, cloaking her in living night.

In the apartment of one Alexander Cruiz, the perfectly smooth white wall becomes alive, the man jumping in terror as a black spiral opens in the plaster.

Before he can even rise from his chair, a large hand made of the same black energy shoots out, slamming him bodily against the wall and pinning his squirming form there.

Other than the hard impact, though, no pain follows, the hand simply holding him up instead of crushing him as the long-time Jump resident had expected.

Raven materializes out of her portal, the black glow leading to her upraised arm.

"What do you know about gems, Alexander?" she asks, her voice seeming to echo off the walls.

"Ain't you one a' them Teen Titans?" he asks.

"We dropped the "Teen" a few years back. Now answer my question. Brother Blood's gem. It was stolen from a museum here. Sebastian's predecessor wouldn't have let that information go unnoticed, so I'm sure your newest  _leader_  hasn't, either. Who has the gem, Alexander?" Raven demands, taking guilty pleasure in watching the man pale and begin sweating before her presence.

"I ain't tellin' you nothin', bitch," he growls, ignoring the hand still wrapped around him.

In an instant, the room is coated with Raven's energy, and he drops to the floor in terror as he's released.

Raven's hood lifts on an unseen wind, and he stares slack-jawed at her illusion, red skin and four hellish, slanted eyes making his heart skip a beat.

" _Thank Azar these fools don't know my tricks,_ " Raven muses, strengthening the illusion against her prey.

" _ **The Gem of Blood**_ ," Raven demands, her voice echoing within Alexander's head. " _ **Who has it**_ **?"**

"I… I don't know! I-It's n-not like I'm-m h-high up in the Ch-Church, or anythin'," he stutters, shaking before her demonic illusion.

" _ **Sebastian, if he's anything like his father, will have you fanatics on the look-out for what's**_ his _ **, so don't bother lying,**_ " Raven snarls. " _ **Who does he have you people on the lookout for?**_ "

"The H.I.V.E. Five! He said that that Kyd Wykkyd guy would've made sense to be able ta' grab the rock without detection. Please don't eat me!"

Remembering the alarm that had been set off in a museum earlier that evening, Raven grins. To the cultist, however, her amused smirk is horrifyingly sinister, his mind made up that he's going to die today.

Noticing his hand clawing at his overworked heart, Raven places her hand on his forehead, a burst of power knocking him unconscious.

Casting her gaze around the room, she rights his knocked over chair and lifts him with soul-self. Brushing off the dirt from his floor, she places him back on the chair, leaving not a shred of evidence of her entry and attack.

Considering Nightwing's former mentor routinely dropped people head-first off tall buildings, Nightwing should understand the effectiveness of interrogation. Ideologically, however, he was still the same idealist boy he'd been when he first left Gotham.

Having cultists suing the Titans over intimidation tactics was a hassle she did not need.

Opening another portal, she vanishes from the apartment, coming out on the ruined carpet of a museum.

Her first thought is that the H.I.V.E. Five seems to have had a rather large disagreement, if the large splatters of blood and scattered wood, feathers, and glass everywhere were any indication.

Whoever had fought, Kyd Wykkyd's signature left in the acrid, burning sensation caused by one of his portals, the rest going with it.

" _And yet the gem is not with them_ ," Raven ponders, moving closer to the trail the gem's dark, angry signature left.

Shrugging, she flies through an open window and begins following the path of the gem…

With a loud  _pop_ , Zatanna materializes in the Titans' living room.

"Ta-daa," she intones, giving them a performer's bow, her tophat floating where her head had been.

The Titans stare at her, all clapping appreciatively at the entrance.

"You've improved, Zee," Nightwing muses, smiling. "I remember when you used to pop in with only half your clothes joining you for the journey."

Zatanna rises from her bow, a strong blush on her face. A cruel smile curves her lips, and she saunters over to the former Boy Wonder, throwing her arm around his shoulder.

"That's right, I have improved. And boy, how I remember so fondly when you were just so little and  _cute_ , Dick," she intones, pinching his cheek harshly.

"Ow, ow! Point taken, I give," Nightwing says, swatting her hand away.

Laughing, Zatanna pats the top of his head, moving over to take a seat at the table the Titans are around.

"So you guys go way back, huh?" Beast Boy asks, missing the somewhat jealous fire in Koriand'r's eyes.

"Yep," Zatanna chirped, smirking at Nightwing's growing blush. "I remember when he was just a little kid. He was so  _cute_ , the way he pined after everything with breasts."

Nightwing's blush turns dark red, and he opens his mouth to yell at the sorceress.

"But I'll be sure to fill you guys in on all the embarrassing stories of Dick's youth later. For now, we have business to attend to!"

With a snap of her fingers, a map of Jump City materializes before her on the table.

"So, if Nightwing agrees, here is where I think everyone should start. We should deal with the most immediately dangerous and available, first," she says, beginning to point at the map.

As they all look at the map, nobody notices Cyborg's glare, his thoughts on what Zatanna's presence means evident.

She may be a good teammate, but the fact that she came to watch his friend does  _not_ feel right…

_Editor's Notes_ :

I'll admit that I don't know the Church of Blood's roster of characters outside of a few specific ones, so I basically made the intimidated middle-man up. Also, I'm using Sebastian Blood IX for this story, under the assumption that the Brother Blood in the cartoon was the 8th. This means the cartoon's Brother Blood, as I explained in the previous chapter, is dead. Sorry to anyone who liked that iteration of the character.

On my formatting:  _italics_  mean it's thoughts,  _ **italic bold**_ means that it's a character using a doubled voice, like Raven in this scene, or screaming vigorously, and  _breaks in the italics means_ emphasis  _in the midst of the thoughts_.


	4. Re-Acquaintance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven's hunt leads her to an unexpected goal.

#  III. Re-acquaintance

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven floats silently above the city, keeping out of sight as she follows the gem's signature.

Apparently, the Church's peon hadn't been entirely wrong. The H.I.V.E. Five had, in fact, had the gem.

And yet, even with the gem's power and Wykkyd's teleportation, someone else had taken them down in a five-on-one fight, which was no small feat.

Her mood becomes progressively more irritated as she travels through the air, pondering the scene.

There had been a sixth signature in the room, one she had definitely felt before. Even ignoring the gem's influence and bringing the barest traces of the attacker's aura that remained to her mind, though, the signature feels wrong, somehow.

Whoever she is hunting, something very drastic has changed their personality since their last encounter.

Finally, she finds the trail becoming stronger, and lowers to the ground, wanting to give whoever it is no warning if it can be helped, before it's too late for them.

When she reaches the thief, though, she falters. Her mind strains to recognize the features before her, the same feeling of familiar yet changed the only thing reaching her senses.

The woman before her is stunning to look at, brunette hair falling to her shoulders, and ending in neon pink strands of color.

She wears a tight leather jacket, a shade of grey almost black with how dark it is, which accentuates the black biker leathers wrapped around her legs.

Almost painfully contrasting this all in the darkness is the neon pink shirt beneath the jacket, as well as the pattern weaving through the jacket of the same color.

When the woman suddenly stops moving, Raven tenses.

Her head turns to the side slightly, and Raven finally recognizes her prey, the large, cat-slitted pink eyes and light grey skin giving Jinx's identity away.

" _Two years has done wonders for her physique,_ " Raven muses, eyeing the muscles where there had previously been twig-thin limbs.

Jinx takes Raven's appearance in for the span of five utterly silent seconds, and then she takes off in a burst of speed.

As she rounds a building's corner, heading into an alleyway, a bright flash of scarlet betrays her current ownership of the gem, hanging from a thick metal chain around her neck.

Raven lifts off the ground and flies after her, impressed to find the feline metahuman using the close walls of the buildings making the alley as springboards, rising higher with incredible grace and speed.

"Looks like wherever you were in your absence has improved your skills," Raven notes nonchalantly, rising to the top of the buildings just as Jinx reaches them.

Jinx remains silent, her eyes flaring bright pink as the air crackles with her energy.

With a wave of her hands, a ring of her hex energy expands outwards, knocking Raven from the air.

She bounces across the building, her cloak mostly preventing any of the otherwise assuredly horrible brush burn and cuts.

Rising with a grunt, Raven shakes her head to clear the spots dancing in front of her vision. Bad luck and internal organs was not a good combination, even for someone with her robust physiology.

"What, no banter? You were always so talkative before," Raven mocks, tasting the woman's restrained emotions on the air.

The gem hanging from her neck gives a bright, red shimmer around Jinx's body, and the glow to her eyes seems to turn redder and darker.

A bolt of hex energy shoots from the meta's index finger, smoke rising in the air as it launches towards Raven.

In response, her own black energy creates a glow of its own, her eyes sparking with obsidian flames.

"Azarath, Metrion,  _Zinthos_ ," she intones, hand flung outward.

From her arm shoots a black claw, rising in an uppercut into the incoming bolt.

With an explosion of red, the bolt detonates under the assault, red smoke quickly vanishing in the dark night air.

Before Jinx can attack again, Raven presses forward with her soul-self, grasping her in a psychic deathgrip.

Jinx grunts as she's slammed into the rooftop, the concrete cracking beneath the impact.

"I don't know why you're here, after your absence, or why you attacked their team. Frankly, I just don't care, Jinx. What I care about is that gem sitting around your throat, trying to burn through my hold on you. You can shut the power supplying off and give it to me, or I can knock you unconscious and retrieve it from you then. Your choice, but make it wisely and quickly, as my patience tonight is limited."

In response, Jinx's eyes flare brilliantly with pink light, and the soul-self containing her explodes.

The meta quickly presses her hands on the roof next to her head and pushes, rolling backwards and onto her feet.

As soon as her feet meet the ground, she presses off and cartwheels backwards, narrowly escaping another grabbing, black fist.

"Raven, wait," she says, hands raised in a way similar to talking down a cagey animal.

"I already told you my patience is limited tonight, Jinx. Your banter should've come earlier," Raven states, sending another grabbing hand at her.

Jinx jumps high into the air, sending two arcs of her energy out and at Raven.

As she brings her hands up to deflect the attacks, Jinx comes down on top of her, both of them slamming onto the roof with twin grunts.

As she prepares to lash out, Jinx grabs onto her wrists, pinning them to the rough surface while pushing her knee into the upper section of her stomach.

Raven gasps, effectively stalled by the efforts, and Jinx stares intently into her eyes.

"Raven, calm down. No need to waste effort fighting. Aren't you supposed to be all about talking and peaceful and simple resolutions?"

Raven goes still beneath her, glaring up.

She finds her mind being torn as she considers the situation while once more tasting the air for Jinx's emotions.

" _She's right, actually. Need to calm down. She probably doesn't even know what she's wearing. And she's afraid, but not of me… or is that just nervousness? Hmm..._ "

Raven gives a deep sigh, her hands going limp under Jinx's grip.

"So talk, then, Jinx. Preferably without you sitting on top of me," she adds, a blush forming at the sensation in her stomach, completely unrelated to the meta's knee.

Nodding, Jinx rises to her feet, seeming to have both the caution to know not to trust Raven at her word and the confidence that she can react if she is lying.

" _Different, indeed_."

"You can't say anything about me being here. At all," Jinx states, casting her gaze about as if expecting something to leap from the shadows.

" _Ah, that's it. She wishes to be hidden… I really must look into what Jinx has been up to in her absence,"_ Raven muses as she, too, rises slowly to her feet.

"As stated, I don't really care what you're doing here, Jinx. I just want the gem. Either you don't have a clue what it is that you're wearing, and if that's the case, you're putting yourself and others at risk. And if you  _do_  know, then you stole it from the thieves with clear intent, and I need to remove it from you before you hurt people," Raven states while dusting herself off.

"I found them while on a job. I kept it, because Kyd Wykkyd was going to get himself killed using it without knowing anything about it. The thing's dangerous, and I get that. So, I decided to safeguard it."

Raven's eyes narrow and she moves silently across the roof, no sound coming from her steps.

With a start, Jinx realizes she's floating and that her cloak has grown to cover her feet, and a shiver runs through her. Clothes weren't supposed to do that, in her experience, and it was really creepy.

"You'll  _safeguard_ it?" Raven inquires, a slight smirk curving her lips. "Jinx, that gem's worse in your hands than his. Your power's bad luck itself, if I remember correctly, yes?"

"I… I've worked on that. Look, you're not going to kill me and I'm too hungry to shoot you again and proceed to run. Do you think we could possibly just talk this out, down where I don't have to worry about tripping and breaking my neck while you keep edging me off the roof?"

Raven's eyebrow rises at that, realizing with a start that she has, in fact, been walking the metahuman closer and closer to the edge of the roof.

"Sorry, the gem has put me in a rather fowl mood," Raven apologizes, a slight blush coloring her cheeks. "Where do you propose we talk about this? I recall you not wanting to be seen."

Jinx points down to a small structure on the opposite side of the street, apparently a small cafe of some variety.

Even from atop the roof, Raven notices that nobody else is inside.

"That's where I was going in the first place. I burned a lot of calories fighting those guys, and that's a relatively new cafe. Opened a little over six months ago, by a man new to the state. No reason he'll have any idea who I am, or possibly you are, and apparently some incredible food. And if we're in there, in a neutral zone, I'll be too busy eating to try anything, and I will no longer be too hungry to explain everything to your satisfaction," Jinx offers.

"Or I could simply pin you and snap the chain off, and then we could both be on our way," Raven retorts with a slight smirk.

"Much as I'd love to go for a roll on the ground with you, that doesn't strike me as your style. You seem like the curious type."

With a slight giggle, Jinx plants her hand on the edge of the roof and flips downward, returning to the ground the same way she'd risen.

With a stronger blush, Raven floats to the ground after her, finding her already across the street and on the way to the cafe.

" _Perhaps she isn't as far off-base as I would like on her assumptions_ ," Raven muses, following after the meta with an audible sigh...

 _Editor's Notes_ :

In the cartoon, Jinx's power is probability manipulation, like Marvel's early Scarlet Witch. In the comics, she's an Indian sorceress. I'm going to be trying to bridge the two logically in the coming story.

Hope you're enjoying, thus far. If you are, let me know. And if you aren't, let me know why, so I can improve myself. See you next time.


	5. Raw Deal (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinx convinces Raven to listen to her story before taking the Gem of Blood.

#  IV. Raw Deal (Part I)

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx stares intently at the menu, seeming to be making some kind of important decision.

With a nod, she takes the notepad on the table and begins writing her order, Raven's eyebrow arcing at the amount of time it takes.

Wordlessly, Jinx puts her menu down and hands the notepad over.

"Well, you apparently weren't kidding about the calories. I suppose a five-on-one fight  _would_  take a lot of energy," Raven remarks, looking over the lengthy order.

With a hum of thought, Raven quickly scrawls her own order down and, making sure the cooks in the back aren't looking, sends the paper floating over with her soul-self.

"Actually, it was really only a two-on-one. I took Private H.I.V.E. and See-More out before they even knew I was there, and Billy didn't even divide before he was unconscious. Angel's the only one who even managed to hit me," Jinx muses, sounding more than a little proud of herself.

"And yes, it burned a lot of energy," she continues. "It didn't take much effort, mind you, but my metabolism is like a crackhead's when I use my magic."

"Interesting. Now, as to the reason we're here and I'm not at home, meditating…?" Raven ponders, eye twitching slightly in irritation.

"Hey, you complained that I was always talkative. Wouldn't dream of disappointing," Jinx says with a grin.

Raven begins to retort when the meta raises her index finger in interruption.

"I will answer any questions you have for me… within the realm of what is safe for me to do so and I'm able. In return, Raven, you're going to promise not to attack or attempt to arrest me, or otherwise cause me trouble, until I have finished and you've at least heard me out first. Deal?"

Raven ponders this for a short eternity. On the one hand, the gem was dangerous, and having it out in the open could attract all manners of dangerous attentions at any moment.

" _On the other hand, it's been stolen for at least a week, and nobody tried to kill Wykkyd to get it in that time_ ," she muses.

With a sigh, Raven mentally curses her curiosity, her irritation over dealing with Zatanna and finding her faith in Earth misplaced having apparently made her more indulging to her emotions than usual.

"That seems… agreeable," she finally states, glaring at Jinx's relieved sigh, a smile creeping across her lips.

The glare quickly vanishes, though, when painful memories surface in the meta's gaze, her emotions already taking on an unpleasant quality.

"I guess I should start with what's been going on for my two years of being off the radar," Jinx states with a sigh.

"That seems like a good place to start, if you feel you need to work your way to your point," Raven agrees.

Jinx loses her grin, glaring at the empath.

"When I had broken up with Kid Flash, it was for personal reasons. I didn't have anything against the Titans, and I found that I liked what I did while helping you guys. So, I decided to strike out on my own as a hero," Jinx begins. "I mean, helping the innocent, saving lives, it felt… good.  _Really_ good. Like I could work off the shit that Brother Blood had us doing while he ran the H.I.V.E., y'know?"

At the mention of the cultist, the gem seems to glow slightly, and with a grimace, Jinx tucks it back beneath her shirt, the pink color hiding the glow sufficiently.

"But, as I'm sure you know, bad luck and helping people don't exactly go together. I saved some people, sure, but I usually ended up accidentally doing way more harm than help, and not just to the people I was intending to help."

"I can only imagine," Raven muses. "Internal organs would not deal with with accelerated decay, if you were not in complete control when attacking directly. Evidently you've gained said control," she adds with a slight smile, pointing at her chest.

"You have no idea how right you are, Raven," the meta sighs, playing with a pink strand of hair.

"One time, this was about a month into soloing it, I found this man being beaten. I mean, really beaten. The guy was using a freaking  _crow bar_ , and he was just pounding on the guy like he was practicing for a baseball game. I attacked him from behind, planning on causing his arm to break or somethin'… But he must've seen my shadow, or heard me, or something, because he turned around."

Raven pales, already suspecting how the story is going to end.

"He still had his arm up, ready to swing, and he was left-handed. My hex bolt hit him, right in the chest. His heart instantly seized, and less than an hour later, the police had me in their meta containment cuffs, on my way to prison for murder."

"Surely they saw it as defense on behalf of someone unable to defend themselves," Raven states drily.

"They would've. If I wasn't a known thief and a metahuman. Between the lack of help from the no longer functioning H.I.V.E., and the bevy of crimes no longer classified and hidden because of it, I was already in a bad place with them. My lawyer was absolute shit, since nobody of skill would touch an ex-H.I.V.E. student, and the few who would were so crooked I didn't want to touch them with a ten foot pole. All that, though, would've been fine. I mean, I was still known to have worked with the Titans, and they didn't know I'd quit."

"I'm guessing that didn't help matters, though."

"Not a bit. The judge was a pious asshole. One of those 'metas are abominations' types, with a real stick up his ass. How he runs a court, I'll never know. Probably had something to do with the Senator, the father of the attacker I'd killed, giving him instruction on how to  _handle_ me."

"Oh, Jinx. You could've called us. Kid Flash would possibly have been an issue for you, but we would have helped. Cy and Nightwing both have contacts that could've helped," Raven says, a slightly sympathetic sound to her tone.

"I thought about it. I figured that Cyborg would've helped. We weren't exactly friends, but he knew me well enough from infiltrating the H.I.V.E. that murder wasn't my thing. But that phone call you're supposed to get? It never showed up, and I went ignored when I asked for it."

Raven winces at the bitterness in the woman's tone, an entirely understandable feeling.

"Before I knew it, I was put in Belle Reve with a sentence of above 200 years, once they started bringing all the crimes they could pin on me up. That place… it's built to house villains and metahumans, y'know? The judge and police didn't know I wasn't one of them anymore, but the inmates sure as hell did, and they made it very clear I wasn't welcome."

Closing her eyes, Jinx pulls in a deep breath, seeming to center herself.

"So I was in maximum security, I had a collar that stunted my powers, and I was in a lions' den waiting for me to sleep so they could shank me. I learned how to defend myself, fast."

"I would imagine so. At least you aren't the stick you used to be, I suppose," Raven offers tokenly.

"Yeah, I guess keeping a step ahead of people wanting to kill me as a traitor to prove a point certainly had to give me  _something_  out of it," Jinx sighs...

 _Author's Notes_ :

As can probably be guessed, Jinx has gone through some heavy stuff. I'm finding it interesting writing her from the perspective of what would happen when she liked the Titans but removed herself from the person who connected her to the rest of them.

As always, hope you're enjoying yourself, and all praise and criticisms are equally welcome! See you next time!


	6. Raw Deal (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jinx continues her tale.

#  V. Raw Deal (Part II)

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Before Raven can comment, a large array of plates arrive at their table. The waiter leaves them without comment, apparently deciding the two look entirely too serious to allow for small conversation.

"So, something happened, obviously," Raven states while emptying several packets of sugar into her teacup. "I mean, you're here, outside of Bell Reve, and you're alive."

Jinx takes a bite out of the steak she ordered, eyes closing as a satisfied hum sounds in the back of her throat.

"The rumors were true, this steak is awesome. And yeah, somebody saved my ass. Harley Quinn, if you'd believe it."

"Really? I don't picture her as the type to take someone under her wing," Raven muses, frowning in thought.

"I thought so, too. So, first day I'm in, and we get sent out for rec time, right? I decide, because I'm an idiot, that it might be better for me if I just stick to a corner of the yard. I mean, I can see all directions for trouble coming, and with my acrobatics, I can use the corner as a good point to start getting away if shit hits the fan, right? Made sense, at the time. Until a whole gang of 'em shows up, and I can't get away in any direction."

She takes another bite, seeming to stall while she collects her thoughts.

"Did you know that rec time there isn't separated like the rest of the prison?"

"They put all the prisoners together?" Raven inquires in her monotone, inwardly horrified at the prospect.

"Yep. Boy, did I learn that fast. So, a lot of these inmates are boxing me in, and I can practically see the writing on the walls. I wasn't exactly all muscle, and the best I could hope for would be to run on their heads until one of them got their hands on me, and then I'd be dead. So, I'm watching them, that's Killer Frost, some old H.I.V.E. students, and some guys I didn't recognized, come at me, right? Then this really loud, bubbly voice sounds, and all of them jump like the damn Devil itself had shown up."

"Harley commands that much respect?"

"You know how she got in, right? She wrecked the Joker, and that kind of thing isn't something people want to mess with. So, this bubbly blonde comes walking right past them, and throws her arm around my neck, acting like we're old friends. She gives them this  _look_ , and they all just back down, turn tail, and run for it. So, she says to me that she remembered her first stint, and that I should learn to fight, quick, because the guards don't do shit in the yard unless a riot breaks out."

Raven takes note of this, making plans to anonymously send some inspections the prison's way. Hearing rumors and hearing it straight from a former inmate were two separate things, and she didn't like the feel of it all.

"So, Harley saved you. I suppose she's the one who taught you to fight?"

Jinx grins at that, pointing her steak-knife in Raven's vague direction.

"Always thought you were a quick one. Harley taught me how to fight, and I mean down-on-the-floor, dirty, no bullshit fighting. Guess she had to learn, if she wanted to keep up with the Joker constantly messing with everyone. Turns out that someone had put me in as her cellmate, which would make sense later but not so much at the time. Luckily, I'm a fast learner. Just fast enough, as it turns out. Did you guys ever hear about the riot, 'bout a year and a half ago?"

"We'd heard. Evidently Batman showed up, and a lot of the inmates decided to shut their cell doors behind themselves as soon as he did," Raven muses with a slight smile.

"Yeah, that ain't a rumor. Well, the riot broke out when I was out in the yard, few months into my stay. Still don't know how the hell they pulled it off, but some of the inmates managed to disable their collars, and powers started getting hurled around to various random and explosive results. Of course, I was not lucky enough to be among the ones that cut out, so I was stuck with just what Harley taught me and my acrobatics. Those ex-H.I.V.E. students I mentioned a minute ago? They noticed."

A hard glint forms in Jinx's eye, and Raven finds herself wondering if the gem's worth putting the girl through the memories causing her suffering.

Before she can make a decision on it, though, the meta continues.

"So, three of them come at me, throwing their powers around as if I've never seen anything like it before. I'd like to say I kicked their asses without a scratch with my new ninja moves, but I'd be lying, at least partially."

Jinx pauses at Raven's audible snicker, staring at her as the psychic simply raises her eyebrow, as if daring her to make mention of her sense of humor.

" _Ninja moves_? I believe that kickboxing would be more Quinn's style."

"Hmm… That's true enough… Mostly, they just didn't have the control of their powers they needed to deal with my new skills after months being without them. It probably saved my life, and just as the riot's being shut down, I just finished up slamming one of their heads into the concrete. When the other two came at me, I was in fight or flight mode, and the guards got to us when I trip them off by kicking their unconscious friend into a roll at them. They both came down and slammed their heads, and all three of them came out of it with serious concussions and the vague idea that I was the reason for it, so rumors started spreading within the week."

"Am I correct in assuming that things didn't get easier afterwards?"

Jinx suddenly digs into her steak, taking several large mouthfuls as her face contorts in thought.

" _Perhaps we're getting to the_ bad _part, then,"_  Raven muses with no small amount of worry.

"Yes and no," Jinx finally says, a grimace on her face. "By the end of the week, I get called up to Waller's office. I'm thinking I'm going to get in deep shit for almost killing three guys, maybe even put in isolation. Glad to say that I was surprised."

Raven simply sips her tea, not pressuring the woman to continue unduly.

"So, I go in, and first thing out of Waller's mouth is that she  _knows_. She makes it clear that she knows I shouldn't be in Belle Reve, or any prison, for that matter. I'm reeling, thinking that I'm either getting tricked or I'm going to be worked for some kind of deal, maybe some info on my former teammates, or something. But she didn't ask for any of that. Instead, she tells me that I can continue on suffering abuse, and I will eventually die when I'm alone, which I'd been lucky to avoid to that point. Said it would be a  _pointless waste of talent_. Or she has an offer for me. I can do… odd jobs for her, and work my sentence off fast with them."

Raven's eyes widen, information coming to the fore of her brain. Jinx's reluctance suddenly makes complete sense, if her suspicions are correct, which they seem to be.

Raven quickly casts her gaze around the cafe, finding no attention, psychic or mundane, focused on them outside of the curiosity over what two young women can be so seriously discussing.

"You're part of Waller's private little black ops, aren't you, Jinx?"

Jinx's head shoots up, eyes wide and terror making a heady scent in the air.

"I don't know what you're-"

"Suicide Squad," Raven interrupts, wincing at the impact Jinx's sudden fear hitting her senses.

Jinx ducks her head low, her eyes in narrow slits focused on the psychic.

"How the fuck do you know that name?" she demands, voice low and entire body tensed in preparation for a fight.

"They aren't as secret as they should be. Frankly, while I get the point of it, Waller's idea of expendable mercenaries doesn't really make for much of a contingency plan or safeguards for privacy, if you know where to look," Raven remarks, raising her hands placatingly. "You need to calm down, Jinx."

"Fucking- ugh. Why would you have  _any_  reason to know where to look in the first place?" Jinx demands, directing her ire at the first question raised in her mind.

"There was an operation done in Zandia, a small Baltic island run by a cult. I make it my business to keep tabs on everything related to that place, and so it was matter of course to discover you guys."

"Who else knows?"

"Jinx, just calm down," Raven sighs. "Nightwing might be the detective, but I've picked up quite a few tricks from observing him and talking to Cyborg over the years. Only I had any reason to know about it all."

Jinx nods, seeming to accept this logic even as panic continues burning through her.

"Raven, you have to swear that you will  _never_ mention that name, ever again. Especially while in any connection to me. Because if someone hears you, Waller made it very clear on my exit that I  _will_ be killed, and so will anyone who learns about it."

Suddenly, Jinx's emotions make total sense, and Raven's gaze softens as she stares at the scared woman, even if she still hadn't told her what she was doing with the gem.

"I swear that I won't tell anyone else, ever," she says, the air vibrating as the magical oath takes place.

Jinx shivers, apparently noticing the geas taking form.

"You just-"

"A geas. If I break the promise, I may die, and if I don't, it will still be of terrible consequence," Raven tells her, the slight glow fading from her eyes.

"Thank you," Jinx says, her body shaking in the wake of the vanishing terror in her system, adrenaline slowly working its way out.

"So, I've yet to hear why you currently have that gem around your neck. Though I suppose at least now, I know you didn't willingly cut all ties with us and disappear, so that's something," Raven states with a slight smile.

"I was getting to that before you so kindly gave me a damn heart attack," Jinx states, a large smile of her own forming before she continues...

 _Author's Notes_ :

For the record, the Suicide Squad in the story is the New 52's iteration, with Harley Quinn and Deadshot. Mostly because I like how Harley's character is being handled with it, though I do recognize quite a few issues with the writing.

A geas comes from older mythology, and over time has become a magically binding oath. Think of it like swearing on the River Styx in Greek mythology.

Not sure if I'm mixing Raven's personality from the many different iterations of her too much, here. Either way, let me know what you think, good or bad. See you next time!


	7. Raw Deal (Part III)

#  VI. Raw Deal (Part III)

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"So, anyway, Waller makes this offer. While I'm not the most perceptive, I'm still smart enough to figure out there are only so many ways you can use a group of supervillain inmates in the kind of deal that gets them out early."

With a sigh, Jinx takes the last bite, finishing off her steak, before sliding another plate of food over on top of the plate.

"So, she can tell I'm not exactly happy about the prospect. I mean, she as much as said she knew I wasn't a murderer, and here she was asking me to at the very least work with some serious hitters who didn't have any issues with it."

"So what changed your mind?" Raven inquires, placing the now empty teacup on the table and pouring another glass from the large glass container left with them.

"Who, not what," Jinx disagrees. "It was Harley. Waller told me that while I'd be running the risk of dying, obviously, probably for the government, I could also get out of prison, not just in my life time but in a few years. Depending on what I was sent to deal with. So, I'm sitting in this huge office, basically being told I can get out of being stuck there wrongly, if I put my neck on the line, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the hell I'm going to do. Then Harley showed up."

"She just walked into Amanda Waller's office?" Raven inquires, starting to get the larger picture.

"More like runs in like a kid on crack, but yeah, pretty much," Jinx says with a shrug. "Apparently, when I'd gotten sent to Belle Reve, Waller had found my ability… _useful_. For heroics, bad luck doesn't do much good, but for secret spy missions without any possibility of an international incident, where the target always needs to die? Yeah, that I could do, or so she thought. So she put me in Harley's cell, and had her run her psychoanalysis crap on me. Y'know, would I be able to handle the battle stress, would I be able to cope with killing willfully, would my mind be able to take the stress of my powers, that kinda' thing. Apparently I passed, and Harley liked me enough, so Waller decided to test me out."

"I wish someone had thought to look for you," Raven sighs. "When you vanished, a lot of people just assumed you went underground, and that you weren't going to be found if you didn't want to. If we had known-"

"I know," Jinx interrupts, her smile becoming a little warmer. "You're not quite the stoic, cold fish everyone seems to say you are, Raven."

"Thank you, I guess," Raven says, blushing at the meta's quiet giggle.

"So, I decide that if I'm ever going to get out of that hole, this was my chance. I wasn't exactly spy material, but very few have ever made it out of there via escape, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be one of them. So I took her up on her offer."

Remembered horrors quickly flash through Jinx's eyes, her grin souring in their wake.

"I got lucky, though. In more ways than one. I was out on several missions, and between Harley and Deadshot, I managed to keep my ass from being fried. Was even useful some times. That op you mentioned? That was the one that really saved my ass."

"I apparently did not do as much research as I thought. All I could get beyond the existence of your team was something vaguely resembling Deadshot's MO. Nothing that would've led me to believe Quinn or you were there," Raven muses.

"Kinda' the point. Anyway, we're in that hellhole, and while we're looking for the target, these cultists pinned everyone else. Deadshot's suit got messed up by their magic, and Harley was stuck in some kind of illusion. She never talked about it. The others… well, they weren't particularly helpful."

"And where were you?"

"Flanking their asses, albeit unintentionally. Part of the whole probability thing; I got separated from them, and came out on the other side of the forest when the explosions started. So, using some tricks that I picked up on other missions, I, uh… I sort've made the Earth eat them."

"A new trick, indeed."

"My hex energy's magical. It was only natural I'd figure out other magic eventually," Jinx shrugs off. "So, the cultists are all crushed, without any sign of them existing when the hole I opened closes after them. We get back to Belle Reve, thinking I royally screwed up, when Waller tells me that I'm going to be released."

"Just like that? When you were so useful to her team? I didn't picture the good warden to be so fair."

"I still have a death threat on my head, y'know. And I worked my ass off, and saved her team. But I think that Harley had mentioned something about when we'd talked, privately, about me finding that, after the first few ops, I found myself liking it. Not the killing, mind you, but the secrecy, the intrigue, and the being useful to people by preventing seriously bad shit from happening, with shocking ease."

"They don't… have you bugged or anything, do they?" Raven inquires, suddenly very worried.

"I… don't think so. You brought the name up first, so if anything, you would probably be the target, right along with me, and I'm sure you could kick their asses if they tried it, so my worry before was a tad unwarranted."

"Glad you think so highly of me, when you just said you made the Earth swallow a whole group while a trained killer was incapable," Raven monotones, the blush seeming to be perpetually with her now.

"You should hear the stories Dr. Light tells in there," Jinx giggles. "I don't know what you did to him, but he has everyone in that place that ever went against the Titans terrified of the dark."

"He caught me on a bad day," the psychic deadpans, sipping more tea to avoid revealing her own grin.

Apparently, her initial impression that Jinx was more tolerable than most during her brief time with them had not been an unwarranted one.

"Apparently. So, anyway, my record got completely expunged, and I'm let out with a lot more combat skills than I went in with, developing powers, and a sudden passion for saving people in a way that I can do. Have you ever heard of the D.E.O.?"

"Of course. Wonder Woman has dealings with them, which means the Justice League has records on them, which in turn means that Nightwing, nosy detective that he is, has said files."

"You  _are_  well informed, aren't you? Well, if you know about her, you know about the D.M.A. division inside of the department, yes?"

Raven nods, sipping her tea and waiting for Jinx to elaborate herself. Evidently, she'd been making good use of her freedom, even if her bosses were all, if Nightwing's data was anything to go by, utterly insane.

"Well, surprisingly, Waller gave me a recommendation when I got out. Of course, they never said who recommended me when I was blindfolded and driven to a spooky, undisclosed location for an interview, but nobody else I know had any kind of way to do something like that. Well, it might've been Mikron," she amends, seemingly to herself as a sudden thought occurs to her.

"Mikron?"

"Uh… Gizmo. He quit the whole villain game as soon as he got de-iced by whoever thawed out the Brotherhood of Evil. We're a team. He does the information, I hit whatever needs to be broken or removed to get the goal done."

"Ah, that'd explain why he hasn't had a presence in our radars, either, then. Don't suppose he knows who freed them?"

"If he does, he hasn't told me," the meta responds with a shaking head. "I bet that  _really_ didn't go over well with you guys."

"Mostly Beast Boy. Nightwing is too busy with… other… concerns, and I admit, I find it difficult to take a talking brain in a jar seriously, despite what horrors he planned before. So what of your other former teammate, Mammoth?"

"He agreed wholly with Giz when he said they  _'didn't need to deal with no damn stinkin' brain gettin' them frozen for more'n half a year,'_  or so Mammoth told me," Jinx says, affecting a much more nasally voice. "He joined up with his sister Shimmer. Whatever they do, it's heavier than whatever we've got going on."

"So, you work for the D.M.A. now. Not to knock you, but I can see that being more your kind of thing than working with needing to play nice."

"Envious?" Jinx asks, affecting an almost flirtatious tone that darkens Raven's blush ever further.

"Truth be told? At least a small amount," Raven states, smirking at Jinx's scandalized gasp.

"Imagine that! Well, I'm not a recruitment officer or anythin', but I could always put a good word in for you with Steel, if you want. We could use the kind of power you throw around, even if Gizmo would pitch a fit."

"I'll think on it," Raven states, surprising both of them with her sincerity. "For now, though, we still have the bit about why you have the gem to go over."

"Oh. Right. So, a month ago, one of our data guys notices all these magical items getting pilfered. Me and Giz get sent out to hunt for them, working quietly to help the Justice League, and various other groups, to retrieve them. Only took us about a week to notice there were no other groups, and we had Giz send a little blip of data, to bring it to their attentions."

"It still amazes me, with their ineptitude on this one," Raven comments drily.

"You, too? Seriously, what the hell's with that? So, anyway, long story short a few items get back to the museums that will just end up being robbed again, and now here I am, with the gem of a cult stolen back from the original thieves. Can't believe that Wykkyd had the damn thing and didn't even seem to know what it really was, other than that it gave him a boost."

"And so, here you are," Raven agrees, her stoic mask becoming harder to keep up by the second...

 _Author's Notes_ :

D.E.O.- Department of Extranormal Operations (they're a group in the comics that deals with supernatural issues, working for the U.S. government, to generally protect the public from crazies with superpowers)

D.M.A.- Department of Metahuman Affairs (a subdivision of the D.E.O., not dissimilar to a Men in Black organization for dealing with metahumans)

Shimmer is a comics-only character, the sister of Mammoth and another member of the Fearsome Five, along with Gizmo, Psimon, and Jinx.

All those factoids out of the way, I hope you're enjoying so far. See you next time!


	8. Intrigue

#  VII. Intrigue

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx silently continues on her meal as Raven lets her mind roll the new information about.

The psychic sits back, sipping her tea while her own unpleasant memories rose.

Whether she intended to or not, Jinx had managed to get into her head. Sympathy isn't an emotion that comes easily to the half-demon, but that didn't seem to stop the meta from making it rear its head.

In some ways, her own fate had been less cruel. At least she had had other avenues to look for help when the Zatarra witch had turned her pleas for help away upon her arrival.

At that, she makes a mental note to partake in some very uncharacteristic gloating at some point, that Zatanna had put the Earth in danger and the exact reason for her caution had prevented it.

The amusement lasts scant moments before her mind turns back to the woman across from her, gaze occasionally flicking up to her before sheepishly returning to stare at her dwindling meal.

" _She had nobody, not really. And in a place that was actively hostile towards her,"_  Raven muses, her gaze softening slightly. " _At least the Titans had no idea who and what I was when I went to_ them _. If Quinn hadn't been there, would she be dead right now?_ "

At that, Raven violently shakes her head, shooing away that line of thought.

Seeming to believe her mental considerations decided on, Jinx clears her throat, her pink eyes bearing into the psychic's own gaze.

"Sooo… I know you've got some telepathy in you, at least a little. Do you believe me?"

Raven thinks back on the whole story, realizing with a start that despite her fear, she had not felt a shred of deceit from the woman outside of trying to not say what she'd done for Waller out loud. Which, in itself, was a perfectly understandable half-lie, which she certainly won't hold against her.

"I do," she responds finally, after noticing the meta beginning to nervously fidget. "I… apologize, for attacking you, and for directly causing you to put your life in danger simply by inquiring on it… I fear that discovering this planet's ineptitude, and the dangerous nature of that gem in particular, has made my logic somewhat frayed this evening."

A Cheshire grin spreads across Jinx's lips, and she leans forward, quickly ruffling Raven's hair.

The psychic blinks in surprise, even as her neck begins to color to match her face.

"People don't touch me," she comments, noticing with irritation the slight waver to her voice.

"Well, I just did," Jinx retorts while moving back to her previous position. "And look, still have my hands and everything. You shouldn't take life too seriously. As for the mortal peril, what's done is done. It's been about ten minutes, and nobody's come crashing through the window with a gun or fireball, so I figure it's safe."

Jinx's grin takes on a more mischievous quality as her mind works.

" _What's risk without a little reward? Turn-about's fair play, an' all that_ ," she muses.

"So, I think that, as I've been so good and satisfied your sense of immediate threat, it's only fair if you answer some questions I have for you, too. I wasn't around the Titans long enough to sit down and try to chat with you. Damn shame, too," she adds, enjoying the psychic's discomfort.

"I, uh… I don't…  _do_   ** _chats_** , Jinx."

"If you say so. We'll just have to fix that, won't we? To make it worth your time, I'll answer any other questions you have for me, as long as they don't endanger me to answer. For real, this time," she adds with a grimace, just now remembering how she'd started her story.

"I really don't know what you have to ask me, but as I  _did_ essentially break a gag order, I do owe you some form of repayment," Raven sighs into her once-again empty teacup.

"I'll just settle for questions, this time," Jinx says with a light laugh, grinning at her ability to make the stoic so red in the face. "So, where should I start, hmmm?"

She taps her chin in thought, a large array of questions coming and being dismissed as fast as she can come up with them. Something in their conversation sticks out, though, and her grin loses some of its mirth.

"Why do you monitor that hole of a country Zandia?"

Raven's mask slips, showing her surprise against her will. She briefly considers lying, but decides that the metahuman's honesty deserves a response in kind.

"The cult you took down, and the gem around your neck, are both part of the Church of Blood. As you were surely told, the Church operates in Zandia. So it is only natural that, as I keep track of their every activity and maneuver, especially those dealing with demons, I would keep track of their home base. And before you ask, yes, that is why I'm after that gem, as well. I needed to make sure one of the church's members didn't get their hands on it. The previous Brother Blood was bad, but I do not yet know how dangerous such an item would be in the new leader's hands."

"Wasn't expecting a freebie getting tossed in," Jinx muses. "I suppose you already know my next question, but it's your turn, now."

Nodding, Raven ponders her options before deciding on the most pressing question.

"Why would you so easily decide to give up information that could get you killed, to someone you hardly know? With what you told me, it seems like you could've escaped me, if you really desired to."

"Simply, you saw me. You  _tracked_  me. I'm in Jump on orders to be  _very_ discreet about helping you guys, and the League. I made a judgment call when you chased me up onto the roof. The easiest way to keep my presence a secret is to give the person who managed to track me from the museum so easily a reason to keep it a secret from others. If I just ran off, I'd have to deal with everyone you called to aid in tracking me down, and a lot of people would know I'm here."

"Do not be so sure of that last part," Raven interrupts, her face returning to its normal color once more. "I parted from the Titans this evening under less than friendly circumstance, and if I had called for assistance, it would make my assurance to Nightwing that I could find items on my own seem arrogant and presumptuous."

" _Really_? Bucking authority, are we? Naughty, naughty, Raven," Jinx mocks, grinning from ear to ear. "Regardless, I'll admit part of my decision was that I figured, out of anyone, that you could keep things to yourself. Until tonight, I had assumed a lot of the rumors about you being… uh-"

Her own face turns red, and Raven partakes in her own smirk.

"Is the word you're looking for, by any chance,  _cold_?" she asks, a lot less harshly than Jinx expects.

"Yeah, kinda'. Glad to find out that the rumors are wrong, though. You're positively chatty once someone gets past that mask of yours."

Raven begins to deny the claim, before a deeper part of her mind growls as it wonders  _why_ she should argue against compliments.

"So there was that, which made my decision acceptable to the mission objectives. That I was right, as usual, doesn't hurt. Anyway, you already knew about the club, and discovered by my not so brilliant slipping of information that I was in it. I admit, I was planning on bolting. I know, I know, shocking! I seemed so calm, right?"

Raven snickers despite herself, pouring the last of the tea in the glass beaker into her cup.

"But then, you told me to calm down. Like it was no big deal. You didn't immediately start cursing my existence, or start preachin' at me, which I'm sure the others would've. So, I decided you weren't a threat to the mission."

"I feel honored," Raven deadpans, grimacing at how cold the tea is.

Smiling, Jinx reaches across the table and touches the cup, her eyes briefly flaring with pink light. When the glow fades, steam rises from the cup.

With a gesture from the meta, Raven sips again, humming in appreciation.

"Another of those new skills?"

"Uh-huh. Though a far more practical use than what the actual power is usually for since I learned it. Anyways, given our past experiences, as well as your reaction to finding out what I've been up to for two years, I figured my impression that you're a logical and intelligent woman were correct, and so I banked on you not judging me while I talked."

She finishes the last bite of her food and stacks her plates, finding to her shock that she's still hungry, somehow.

"I'm going to order some more. You want in?"

Raven simply nods, writing for another order of the tea, as well as something of substance, before handing the notepad to Jinx.

"Of course, more went into it. It's actually really nice, to be able to get all this out of my system to someone other than Gizmo. He ain't exactly sympathetic. But all of this isn't the driving force for having this conversation here and now, instead of talking you into waiting on it."

"Oh? Well, by all means, don't keep me in suspense."

Smirking, Jinx tears the new order form free and rises, walking it over to the window for the kitchen.

When she returns to her seat, she stops at Raven's side of the booth, bending close to her side.

"It's been a long time since I had dinner with a cute woman," she says, laughing when Raven jumps, apparently having been lost in her own mind and failing to notice her approach.

Raven's blush returns full-force as Jinx flounces down onto her own side of the table.

Her mind whirls at the remark, but before she can become uncomfortable, or more distressingly  _curious_ , Jinx interrupts her thoughts with a laugh.

"And I wanted to keep it going," she continues as if having never stopped. "So I simply had to lure you in, with the intrigue of having dinner with a spy."

At that, Raven laughs, the noise startling her.

"I admit, if that was your plan by coming down here, it has certainly worked, Jinx. It's… difficult… for people to  _intrigue_ me," she muses, blushing all the way from her neck to the roots of her hair at this point.

"I believe it's your question, now," Raven prompts, deciding that the gem shall certainly be handled during the night, so rush is unnecessary…  
 **......................................**

 _Author's Notes_ :

I find it a little sad that the past three chapters was spawned, when first writing out the plot of the story, by the desire to have Jinx flirting with Raven and bringing her out of her self-enforced shell.

With that in mind, readers, how'd I do, both with handling the characters so far and making a believable exposition? Let me know your thoughts, good or bad. See you next time!


	9. Issue of Trust

#  VIII. Issue of Trust

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx's eyes narrow in thought, once again picking out from a list of possible topics to keep the black-haired mystic engaged.

She had flirted, pretty blatantly, with the woman.

Getting a rise out of her was fun, as it turned out. But proving that the rumors about her felt like an achievement of some kind, and she finds herself wanting to bring her out from behind the walls she cocooned herself in more as the conversation continues.

"Okay. I was gonna' ask you why you track the church, but you've just said as much as that you're sticking around for a while. Apparently I ain't the only one enjoying good conversation," she remarks.

"You've no idea."

"So, how 'bout… how did you track me? I was careful about leaving traces all over the place, and you didn't have Cy hack the cameras around to find me, if that bit about you soloing it tonight is true. The Five wouldn't be in the mood to answer your questions while bandaging See-More, Billy, and Private up. So how the hell'd you do it?"

"Somehow, I doubt that would have helped much, if Gizmo is your partner. We got a signal earlier this evening about a break-in into the museum. While in the process of aggressively questioning a cultist, some information led me to connect the two, and I headed there immediately."

"Okay, wait. Can I change my question to what, exactly,  _aggressively questioning_ means?" Jinx asks with a toothy grin. "Oh, no, wait, wait, lemme guess!"

Jinx closes her eyes in mock concentration, the grin not leaving even under the heat of Raven's glare.

"I'm picturin' something. I see Batman dropping a thug off the roof, only to grab their ankle at the exact moment he begins screaming in terrified panic. Yeah, that's what comes to mind. And here I thought your badass solo comment was to impress."

At this, Raven's expression darkens, a grin of her own forming as she leans forward over the table.

"If you have to ask that, Jinx, trust me, you don't want to know the answer."

Something about her tone sends a pleasant shiver through Jinx, and she sits back, hands raised in surrender.

"Alright, alright, I'll take the safe out here. Please, continue," she adds with a slight cough.

"By the time I reached the museum, they were gone. I could pick you up, but your aura was…  _different_  than the last time we met. Now I know why, at least. At any rate, I tracked the gem, not you. It gives off a very specific psychic frequency. You needn't worry, though. The trail was fading as I followed it, and to begin with, I imagine that very few people other than me would have any idea what they were looking for in the first place, to catch the frequency. It's fairly low-key to begin with."

"So I wasn't sloppy. Phew," Jinx sighs in relief, leaning back as the waiter returns with another plate for each of them along with a fresh, steaming beaker of tea.

"You gals're making the old man's week," he remarks with a smile as he rises from his graceful bend.

"Whoever's back there isn't getting paid enough. They're fantastic at their job," Jinx comments, handing him the dirty plates.

"Indeed, even your tea is quite well-made," Raven adds with a smile. "Tell him he can expect more business in the near future."

Nodding, the waiter leaves them to their privacy with a large smile of his own.

"Son of the owner?" Jinx ponders.

Raven smiles at the warm emotions coming from the young man as he moves back into the kitchen.

"That seems like a good guess. Now then…"

A strange thought occurs to Raven, and her mouth moves of its own accord even as her blush returns once more.

"What's your name? I mean outside of your handle," she adds quickly in response to her confused expression.

"Okay, I'll admit that I was not expecting  _that_. I just prefer Jinx… Back when I was just Nicole Diaz, my name was dull, uninteresting, and full of a lot of memories better left dead and forgotten. So when I got the opportunity to pick my handle when the H.I.V.E. took me in, I went with a much more interesting and accurate name."

Her soured expression quickly morphs back into her smirk, an index finger raising to point at Raven.

"And what's  _your_  real name, Raven?"

"Raven," the psychic responds with a shrug.

"No way. It's at least believable as a real name unlike mine, but that's too convenient."

With a raised eyebrow, Raven simply shrugs once more at her.

"Raven, daughter of Arella. For legal purposes, I'm also Rachel Roth, bastard daughter of Angela Roth."

" _Rachel_ , huh?"

Jinx repeats the name several times, seeming to test the sound of it.

"Not too bad. I could see it. Raven definitely suits you more, though."

She laughs lightly in response, the sound almost missed by Jinx.

"Glad I meet your approval. Why'd you break up with Kid Flash?"

Her eyes widen as soon as the words leave, her mind working backwards as it tries, and fails, to figure out where that question had come from. She internally winces at the expression on Jinx's face.

"I can ask something else if that's too personal," she states almost apologetically.

"I bet a lot of you guys have wondered that since he told you."

"I'm sure. I am not one of them. Or at least, I assumed I wasn't. I really have no clue where that came from."

Jinx nods her head, seeming to have come to a decision.

"I liked him. A lot… But I didn't like myself when I was around him," she starts. "I was becoming incredibly jealous. And it started getting on my nerves, especially when he noticed and seemed to think, thanks to his cocky attitude, that was a natural response. So, after a ton of thinking on it, I made the hard choice. I left him, for the betterment of us both… I knew that he and a lot of his friends in the Titans would feel betrayed by the departure. If I could do it all over again, though, I would have been more gentle about it. And I would've tried going into demolition work or something that didn't involve blood," she adds, trying to lighten the mood.

"I apologize for bringing up even more bad memories."

"Oh, no need for that. It's interesting, seeing what kind of thing goes on in your mind when you're not playing it cold. But, if we're going to go onto heavy topics, then fair is fair. Why don't you lead the Titans?"

Raven's mirth dwindles slightly at that, eyes noticeably widening.

"I mean, you have that black stuff you throw around, you can teleport, you know magic, and you're freaking  _psychic._ You've also got a cool head. It's something I've wondered about ever since we first met as kids."

Raven fidgets in discomfort, a treacherous part of her brain pointing out that those very things had occurred to her not just once, especially with Nightwing's recent leadership of the team.

" _Maybe she could be a good sounding board?_ " she sighs mentally.

"When I first arrived in Jump City, I was… looking for some aid that the Justice League in its wisdom decided didn't need to be given. I actually formed the Titans. But, as I'm sure you've gathered, I'm not a very social person. Sure, I can do a  _lot_  of damage, and I'm rational to a fault, but leading a team of strangers? No, that was Robin's thing."

"Okay… so that explains why you  _didn't_  lead them. Why  _don't_  you?"

"I… I've gotten more confident over the years. This conversation? It would never have even started back when we first started. But I prefer to stay in support, a sentiment that Nightwing vocally agrees with."

"Seriously? You're a walking tank of supernatural ass-kicking, and he has you running in the back?"

"You mentioned Dr. Light before. That is what my powers can do to someone with as much self-confidence as to never give up despite never once succeeding in his criminal career. Would  _you_ want that actively thrown against the petty thieves and simpletons in way over their head?"

" _Me_ , the mercenary, specifically? Hell yeah, I would want that right on the front lines with me. But I could see how that'd go against bird-brain's preaching that he's any better than the Bat."

"Indeed. There's also another matter, which were I the leader, would be rather troublesome."

"Oh? Would this have anything to do with that  _aggressive questioning_?"

"That, too, yes. And if I had the sense of a leader's responsibility, we would never have sat down together and begun enjoying such good food and conversation, something which I have not enjoyed with anyone not a Titan before, and recently even them."

Jinx blushes this time, shocked at the perceived return of her flirting.

"Well, then, I guess we should both be glad that the bird-brain commands you guys," she says, raising her glass in a mock toast.

Smirking, Raven raises her teacup and meets it with a clink.

As she sips at the steaming liquid, though, Raven's expression loses some of its warmth, then, obvious conflict showing in her expression.

A slight red glow permeates the air around Jinx, the sensation grating against Raven's mind like a knife.

"And as much as I would greatly enjoy continuing the conversation, the night is growing late, and that gem is beginning to make it more difficult to enjoy myself."

"Alright, I guess we'll move onto business, then," Jinx sighs, lamenting the shift in their conversation. "Make your case. We're both reasonable women, so if you can convince me, the bossman shouldn't ride my ass too hard, since I'll technically be finishing the job anyway."

"I don't suppose telling you to give it to me so I can guard it en transit to where it can be safely taken care of will work?"

"I like you, Raven, increasingly so the longer you loosen up in my company. And like I said, I think you're a helluva powerful sorceress. On the other hand, false imprisonment in a maximum security has made trust difficult. Also, I have this policy I thought of when I was assigned to this, namely that I trust even less than normal when it comes to handing demon-summoning gemstones powered by generations of the blood from sons killing fathers in blood rituals to take over a demonic cult. A bit long-winded, but relevant."

At this, Raven laughs once more, this time leaving no question as to whether it happens or not.

"That is a  _very_ good policy to take up, Jinx. And honestly? I would say I trust you and yours a lot more than I do the museum that put it on display for the public in the first place."

"Well, that was easier than I tho-"

"But the gem's dangerous, Jinx. Not just in general, but even wearing it puts you at risk. The thing amplifies power on top of being a portal generator. It may be a concern unwarranted, but with what I know of the Church and its machinations, it will almost certainly make your powers go out of control."

"I'm touched that you're worried, Raven," Jinx laughs, melodramatically batting her eyes and placing a hand over her heart.

"Laugh, Jinx, but know that I am most sincere. You have the power to make things break down, and now you've developed control over the Earth's ground and fire. If it doesn't cause your powers to go berserk, it could overload and kill you. At any rate, something bad  _will_  happen as long as the cursed blood poured on it still… has… huh," she says, eyes widening as a thought occurs to her.

"Uh… Raven? Care to share the sudden inspiration?"

"What if we can both win? I remove the threat of what the gem can do, and you can report a successful mission."

"I'd say that's great, if you tell me how you plan on doing that."

"We disenchant it," Raven states, mind working rapidly as the plan works itself out.

"I don't know how we'd do that. We're talking  _centuries_ of bad mojo," Jinx argues, pulling the gem from inside her shirt as it begins heating up.

"You don't want to risk a sorceress like myself misusing the gem between the time I retrieve it and the time it's given to someone who isn't an irresponsible ass, probably Doctor Fate. I want to make the gem something that won't be a danger to everyone down the road. The best way for those two goals to meet in the middle is if we remove the energy inside of the gem. We strip the power, I send it into the universe to disperse harmlessly, and what we have left is a hunk of pretty but useless red rock and several hours to further enjoy ourselves."

"Okay, I think I could see that working, actually," Jinx says with a nod. "We'd basically be hitting reset on it."

"Well then, let's move. I don't want my tea going cold again," Raven says, extending her hand out to the meta.

Nervously, Jinx grasps the surprisingly warm limb, and the booth flashes with a burst of black energy.

"I advise you don't let go," Raven warns.

Jinx is nervously aware of a tugging sensation on her mind, and suddenly, they are floating in a strange, red skyscape, their hands still linked.

"And you can astral project, too? Life just ain't fair. Anything you  _weren't_ gifted with being able to do that most people wish they could try?" Jinx groused.

Yet another laugh leaves Raven, this one sounding far less pleasing, and assuring Jinx she much prefers the other noises the psychic makes.

" _Gifts_  indeed. This is the astral landscape Nevermore. Best place to deal with a psychic energy problem, right?"

Jinx doesn't respond as they float rapidly down to a massive hunk of flying rock and warped mountain…  
 ******************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Nicole Diaz is an alias of the Indian version of Jinx in the comics. In the comics based around the 2000 cartoon, what Jinx describes is what I've gathered is the case with her personality while dating Kid Flash.

As always, I hope you're enjoying thus far! Whether you like it or not, let me know. Letting me know  _why_  would also be nice, so I can improve myself as I go. See you next time!


	10. Nevermore

#  IX. Nevermore

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"How're we going to drain the gem here? If this is an astral plane, then there's no chance these are our real bodies," Jinx says as soon as they land. "No bodies, no gem."

In response, Raven releases her hand and turns her palm up.

With the meta's gaze on her, a cloud of black forms, and Jinx gasps as a window into the utterly normal cafe appears.

Silently, Raven reaches through and flicks her wrist against the gem, sending it into a small jump around Jinx's neck.

In response, the necklace around her astral form jumps in kind, almost hitting her in the face.

"What happens here happens in the mortal world," Raven explains as the portal quickly snaps shut.

"Not from anything I've ever heard about Astral travel," Jinx argues, holding the gem away as if it would attack her. "I mean outside of dying or getting trapped, obviously."

"Nevermore's a bit… different. While it's a mental, astral plane, it's also my mind. Kinda. It's kind of hard to explain, but it means that we're not totally here physically, nor are we totally psychic. So things that happen here reflect on the world outside."

Jinx stares at her with a gaping mouth, mind reeling at the information.

Shaking her head to snap out of it, she casts her eyes around the gloomy landscape.

"Well, it definitely suits you… Do I have to spend another question to figure out how the hell a person has a whole landscape in their  _brain_?"

"I'm going to take that as a compliment, Jinx. And really, I just have a very  _odd_  genealogy, which lends itself to having a tendency towards dimensional weirdness."

"Uh-huh," Jinx responds, glaring skeptically at the unblinking woman. "So, riddle me this, Raven."

The psychic flinches slightly at her tone, one she always finds incredibly uncomfortable to hear, since the Monks arguing for her death had first used it.

"We're in your head. What could possibly tell me that everything I see and feel is real in here? For all I know, this could be a massive illusion. I mean, for all I know, I could really be unconscious at the diner right now, playing out some pre-recorded sights. Raven, if your  _mind_ looks like this, I don't-"

Raven puts her hand on the woman's shoulder, quickly cutting her off.

As she feels the rising panic in the feline metahuman, she realizes the error in her decision.

"I'd tell you it doesn't work that way, but frankly, you're right. Were the situations reversed, I would not trust anything my senses told me, nor would I accept anything I experienced in someone else's mind."

"So what the hell, Raven? Where exactly does that leave us? Cuz' I was having a lot more fun a few minutes ago, before you brought the damned gem up again, and I'd prefer to go back to that than suddenly be wondering if my brain's stuck somewhere."

Before Raven can answer, something shifts the rocks and ground nearby, and both women turn to face what's coming, though only Jinx puts her fists up as if preparing for a fight.

"There's a simple solution to your issue," a voice,  _Raven's_ voice, states.

Jinx's eyes widen as another Raven, dressed in yellow and wearing large glasses, appears in the rocky field.

Raven feels a sense of foreboding fill her stomach, and she silently stares at her Emoticlone, wondering what she's doing.

"Okay, not giving me confidence I'm not being messed with, Raven," Jinx says, not sure which one she's addressing.

The yellow-garbed figure has no such issue. Instead, she holds her hand out, and a black dagger materializes at Jinx's feet.

"You want proof that you aren't under an illusion. Simple solution, then. You kill her, then the illusion would fail, and it'd be over. You wake up. Of course, the down side would be waking up with her body slumped over in a coma across the diner's table, but if the whole night's been an illusion, then that's not a worry, right? No Titans will come hunting vigorously for who attacked her, and by extension myself."

Raven pales at Wisdom's words, even as Jinx clutches at her head.

"Gah! You're making me even more confused. Why the hell're there two of you?" she demands, going with the first question she can think of and desperately hoping the answer distracts her from her building migraine.

"Making it simple, she's part of my brain, just as Nevermore itself is," Raven states, glaring at her avatar.

"I said it's simple," Wisdom states. "You said you're worried about this all being a huge illusion built by us to ghost away the gem from your unconscious body. Surely, then, a former member of the Suicide Squad would find the choice to kill the basis for her illusion and free herself a very easy choice to make. And no, I am not breaking my geas, because as you pointed out, we're in her head, which means it's technically just you two here."

"Wisdom, you're not helping," Raven growls, eyes becoming narrow slits at Jinx's growing bodily tremors.

Jinx again sends her stare from one to another, finding her headache stretching to new heights of pain.

"If, on the other hand, you follow your instincts, where I suspect your real problem lies… well, then surely you'll find the idea of picking up that very real ceremonial dagger that was left here whilst Raven practiced its use and stabbing her with it to be…  _disagreeable_."

Going over the logic, Raven gives a grudging nod to her other self, walking slowly up to the trembling Jinx.

"She isn't wrong, Jinx. Stabbing me would remove any doubt as to whether or not I am playing games with your mind, and it would also put me into a, possibly irreversible, coma right on the diner table. I should have explained things a lot more thoroughly before we came here, and I'm afraid that your understandable torment lies solely at the feet of my uncharacteristic impatience."

Jinx's shakes calm slightly under Raven's grip, and her mind slows down with them.

Without the soul-crushing panic, her instincts can once more assert itself into her logic.

"I don't have a fucking clue what to do, Raven," she says, deciding it's the only thing she  _is_  sure of. "I want to trust that we're really in some weird, messed up mental representation of your brain, and that we can de-power this damn gem and go back to the by-far more pleasant night we were enjoying while you were distracted."

"But…?" Raven prompts.

"But tonight was the first time we talked outside of banter when we were still fighting, and that's a  _lot_  of years for a person to change. Something I know damn well. I mean, for all I know, this is what you were talking about with yer damned  _aggressive questioning_ , Raven."

"I won't lie, this  _is_ more or less what I meant by that term. I don't bring people here, though. Too much risk to my psyche if they manage to hurt me in here, as my other self over there said. So I won't tell you that you can trust me, because really, you can't, not here. But think about it, with a calm mind. We talked for an hour, and the entire time was very enjoyable to us both."

"More than you'd know, to have her admit to that," the yellow Raven adds, turning and leaving now that the crisis is in the process of ending.

" _Anyways_ , I need you to think about things. Your concern is valid. There's a counterpoint, though. From the time that we entered the cafe, you worked under the theory that you could trust your instincts, that at the very least I was not an immediate threat, despite knowing what I can do. Correct?"

Jinx nods, seeming to become calmer as her headache disappears.

"Then, I raise a question. What reason could I possibly have, to come up with an elaborate scheme, in the course of less than an hour, mind you, to manipulate you to coming here to trap you, when we were getting along just fine? I brought you here to do just what I stated. I want to drain the gem of its magic, and I decided you'd best join me so that you'd be able to keep me under watch so you know I don't do anything other than exactly what I said I would."

Raven gently squeezes Jinx's shoulder, stopping her interruption short.

"I should've explained how we'd be doing this… In here, the Titans, the Church of Blood, and anyone else knowing to look, will not know what is happening, and so it can be done without the irritating bureaucracy of either of our organizations' involvement. You achieve your objective, and I remove the threat that, as my lack of forethought proves, I find more worrisome than I originally assumed. I swear to you, Jinx, that was the reasoning of bringing you here, where I am uncomfortably vulnerable."

Something in Raven's voice reaches Jinx, and she cautiously meets the psychic's eyes. If her instincts hadn't been enough to convince her into accepting Raven's word, the regret burning in her gaze would have done it all on its own.

Letting out a deep sigh, Jinx gently pulls Raven's hand from her shoulder, her grin far more shaky than she would like.

"Alright, Raven. I'm going to have plenty of questions when we leave here, but for now, it'd suck to go through that and not get something accomplished. So what do we need to do?"

Raven's face visibly relaxes, a relieved noise coming from her that she is utterly unaware of.

"Okay. I need you to put the gem on the ground."

Nodding, Jinx begins unsnapping the chain from around her neck, a sudden thought occurring to her.

"The gem ain't gonna just fall off me in the diner, will it? Because that'd draw attention, and I don't think they'd handle two suddenly unconscious women well."

"Um… I don't know, actually," Raven muses with a blush.

She again opens her window into the real world, intently looking at the gem.

"Unsnap the chain, but don't put the gem down," she says without looking at the meta.

A relieved smile forms when Jinx moves the gem from herself and the physical one doesn't follow.

The window closes once more, and Raven gives her a nod.

As soon as the gem is on the rocky ground, Raven sits cross-legged before it. It takes only a hand gesture, and Jinx follows suit, the two forming a circle around it, their knees almost touching.

A thought occurs to Jinx, and her grey skin pales somewhat to reflect it.

"So, uh, how're we doing this? Because I  _really_  don't want this thing exploding on me," she states.

Raven shakes her head in response, a smile tugging at her lips.

"What would make you think that?"

"Well, the whole  _it can make you die_  thing was a clue… I mean, that makes it sound like I couldn't control it, which would mean it's unstable, right?"

"You seem to have misunderstood my explanation somewhat, Jinx. It is undeniably dangerous, but it is not  _volatile_  in nature. Were it unstable, the energy trace would have been imbalanced and likely too chaotic for me to follow. It will not explode, so long as we manage things well. As long as I don't go around smashing it and making the vessel itself unsuitable, nothing will explode."

"Okay, that makes me feel better… I'll warn you now that even though I've been working on things, I've only recently gotten into full-blown sorcery. I don't know many spells, so I really don't have a clue what good I'll do."

"No need to be humble, Jinx. That's a trait I certainly don't remember of you. Be proud of your vast improvement over so relatively short a time."

Jinx's grin returns in full force, an appreciative hum sounding in the back of her throat.

"I  _am_  pretty awesome."

"Indeed," Raven deadpans. "At any rate, I'll be doing most of the work. You'll be acting as the second part of a circuit, so I can drain the power from it without taking the full brunt of that power on my own."

"So I'm just some kind of insulation?" the pink-haired woman responds with a frown.

"Not in so many words, no. You have a decent amount of power, and a lot of potential, so your aid will keep me from going into a temporary coma from the strain. Because you are foreign to this realm, you'll ground me, so to speak, and significantly reduce the stress on my mind and power."

"Wouldn't it be better to have someone who, uh,  _knows_  how to do this stuff, then?" Jinx asks, her sudden nervousness clear.

"The point is subtlety, Jinx. As I said, I do not take random people here. Most do not even know of this place's existence. Which is why all the mystics in the various worlds won't feel a thing when we drain the negativity from the gem here, at least in theory."

"So why'd you bring me here? I get the whole  _keeping this quiet_  thing. But you barely know me, and apparently, if I'd taken that knife, I could've made you braindead."

"Path of least resistance," Raven explains. "Again, I did not think this all out nearly as well as I should have, or normally would. But you have the gem. Were that not enough, you put your life in direct danger with your confession of your absent time. Kind of hard to mistrust you after that much faith you put in your instincts, and as a consequence myself."

"That why you're so open about everything?"

Raven's smile widens at that.

"In part. And that you're very entertaining to talk to certainly did not hurt my willingness to continue the conversation. Shall we get started?"

With that, she closes her eyes, Jinx mirroring the action.

A gasp sounds as power floods through her, both of them rising off the ground and floating above the gem, now giving off angry red sparks of energy.

Raven's mouth moves, a language long-forgotten by humans reaching Jinx's ears.

Their hair begins to move in waves in the air around them, and with their eyes closed, neither notices the brilliant glow their bodies send out into the landscape before them.

They stay like this for a small eternity, Raven's mouth moving to an ancient rhythm while Jinx instinctively meets the energy and completes the magical circuit.

With a snap, the ritual reaches its peak, and a violent tremor runs through the ground under them.

Raven's eyes shoot open just as a massive column of red light rises from the gem, mixed with sparks of other colors that have no rhyme or reason to their existence.

The column reaches the red clouds above them, and a much larger hole than Raven's rips itself into existence above it.

Both women look up as the column shoots through, reaching the white clouds of Earth and quickly expanding with billions of strands of colored light.

Raven stretches her arms out, and Jinx grabs her hands almost automatically.

As soon as they touch, the column expands, and with the sound of panes of glass shattering, it leaves the gem altogether, the tail quickly expanding into more colored sparks of energy into the universe.

As it leaves, the women collapse back to the ground, their exhaustion making itself known.

Noticing the signature of the gem, Raven groans, releasing Jinx, who promptly falls onto her back to pant heavily on the ground.

"Please… tell me… we can finish eating… now," she wheezes, wiping at a large bead of sweat on her brow.

"That was… just the negative energy… in the gem," Raven responds. "There's still energy there…"

Jinx stares at her in horror, her expression quickly turning to a glare at Raven's audible laugh.

"Not… funny…"

Raven takes a deep sigh, her own breath evening out far more quickly than the unpracticed meta.

"I wasn't joking. All of that was the generations of evil stored in there. There was a large part of the energy stored as well, but there remains energy yet. However, it is no more powerful now than your everyday energy vessel. Nothing special about it anymore."

"Then just… say that… damnit," Jinx sighs, slowly feeling the ache in her brain fading as she talks.

"Will do."

Raven puts her hand on her forehead, and a circle of white light forms in her palm.

Immediately, Jinx's fatigue fades, eyes closing as a moan escapes her.

Blushing, Raven jerks her hand away.

"What was that?" Jinx asks, slowly sitting up.

"Healing your mental fatigue is easy enough, and the least I can do for putting you through all this."

"You can put me through it  _any time_ , if that's how I get rewarded," Jinx retorts, laughing at the dark red burning Raven's skin.

"Regardless. We've worked enough out to make the gem safe, so my mission is complete. For all I care, you can keep it yourself, now. The Church of Blood should have no interest of it once the word gets around anonymously that their toy was destroyed, as well."

"You'd better believe I'm keeping the damn thing, after all that," Jinx laughs. "As far as the bossman will be concerned, the threat's neutralized."

Nodding, Raven rises to her feet, pulling Jinx up to follow when she takes her offered hand.

"Hold on. Again," she states as another pulse of black energy washes over them...  
 ***********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I was rather surprised, but the actual term for Raven's emotional avatars in Teen Titans Go! seems to really be Emoticlones. They'll be coming into things, too, a bit later.

For this scene, I actually had a rather hard time figuring out how to write it. When I got to the point that Raven reveals what Nevermore is, I originally planned on it being something said in passing that impresses Jinx. When I actually wrote it, though, I wondered how Jinx could possibly be nonchalant, when for all intents and purposes it means that literally anything and everything around her could be false to trick her. Hope I handled it realistically.

If I did, let me know. Compliments are always welcome. And if I didn't, let me know, because criticism is fantastic for figuring out my weak points, which objectively I have a hard time seeing. See you next time!


	11. Reluctant Departures

#  X. Reluctant Departures

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx's head snaps to attention, finding herself once again at the diner.

The lack of sensation from the gem on her chest is what alerts her to the fact that their work has paid off.

With a grin, she reaches for her drink to deal with her suddenly incredibly dry mouth.

Finding it still steaming, a frown takes form. Her gaze immediately moves over to the clock on the cafe's wall, and her eyes widen.

"How the- It's not even five minutes!"

"So I see," Raven deadpans whilst sipping from her tea.

"But… we were in… er…  _you_ … for hours," she says, both of them blushing at the statement.

"Also true. Time doesn't flow the same in Nevermore."

"I see… Your mind's a weird place. No offense, Rae, but it's hella' creepy in there. I much prefer being in the real world!" she adds with a grin.

"So it seems. I can't apologize enough for all of  _that_ ," she adds with a grimace.

"No problem. But you know what this means, don't you?"

"That a potential friendship's been ruined by unintentional mental scarring?"

Raven, to most people, would look entirely stoic at that statement. Jinx, however, notices some incomprehensible amounts of regret in her gaze.

"Nope. It  _means_  that now, we're officially off-duty. No more talking shop tonight. So let's see what we can do about this  _potential_  friendship, shall we?"

Raven ponders this quietly.

" _Nightwing will want a report. A report I'm not going to be able to give."_

She brings her communicator out of a pocket on her belt, checking to see what reports came in during their engagement.

Finding nothing in the hour since her departure, she gives a nod to herself and snaps the communicator shut.

"I think I'd like that."  
 ****************************

"-so you can imagine my surprise when I get a call in the middle of the night. I mean, they're  _monks_. You would expect they'd be in the middle of their meditations," Raven states, an amused smirk coloring her lips.

"What the hell'd the kid do? Aren't they supposed to be all above irritation, and stuff?" Jinx inquires, her own lips stuck in a perpetual grin.

"Well, evidently, as she has aged throughout my visits, Melvin has acquired some of my less…  _holy_  interests. The monks had a fit when their meditations were interrupted by that monstrosity from Wicked Scary. Frankly, I didn't know what to say to the distressed man. I certainly couldn't scold her for doing what I'd done to the Titans, and I couldn't simply tell them that her powers naturally reflect her mind. I think that would have made it worse, actually."

"So what'd you do?" Jinx asks, sliding yet another empty plate onto the growing stack at her side.

"I went there and made her see reason. Unlike my inadvertent manifestation, Melvin was  _entirely_  aware of her actions. I told her that she would feel terrible if her play ended up causing the monks to have heart failure, and in that light, she agreed that it'd be terrible. Interestingly, though, the monks had a lot more lights installed into their facility the very next week."

At that, Jinx laughs, shaking her head.

"Damn, Rae, those poor guys didn't know what they were in for."

"Indeed. If not for my regular visitations, I think they would have tried to form a timeshare with other groups, by this point. They may have the patience of wise-men, but they do not have bodies to keep up with their antics."

Jinx's smile grows at the warmth in the psychic's voice.

It had taken nearly two hours of their meeting, but she had finally managed to get Raven out of those damned walls she kept herself locked in.

The hour following after that break-through has been a lot more informative about the mysterious Titan than Jinx ever could've hoped.

" _Not to mention just plain fun_ ," she adds mentally to herself.

Looking at the clock during the lull in their almost nonstop conversation, Raven's eyes widen.

"How have they not kicked us out yet?"

"Well, it could be that they just don't want to ruin the adorable sight of you when you're really enjoying yourself."

Raven's face instantly turns the red color that Jinx has become accustomed to, both of them shocked at how easy it is for the meta to cause the reaction.

"But I think it's probably all this," she says, gesturing to the many small plates around them.

Many cups of tea and small snacks had paved the way to their being allowed essentially free-reign of the cafe, neither the waiter nor the cook in the back inclined to interrupt the strange women.

"Yes, that makes some sense," the psychic agrees. "You know, Jinx, for an ex-convict, you are by far the most entertaining person I've conversed with in a very long time. Interesting, too, truth be told. Perhaps your plan to intrigue me worked better than expected."

"Awe, you're just pandering. I mean, you work and live with Batman's ex-apprentice, an alien queen, a genetic-level shapeshifter, and a freaking genius engineer with half a robot's body. How's that possible?"

"Nightwing has become…  _difficult_ … to converse with recently. He's becoming far too much like his mentor, which would actually be okay, but he refuses to see it and clings to thinking as he did when we were children. Beast Boy… don't even get me started. What was once kind of amusing and endearing machismo in his youth has become nigh-intolerable arrogance for more than short bursts of time."

Raven takes a long sip of her tea, finishing off yet another cup.

"The others are by far better. But Cyborg, while a very smart man and a good friend, is intelligent in a very different area than myself. My interest in technology, I admit, is nearly nonexistent outside of keeping my monitoring activities hidden. It makes conversations on common interests a more daunting task than should be. And Starfire… well, I like her enough, don't get me wrong, but the woman's constant bubbly happiness makes it nearly impossible for me to have conversations of any actual depth or interest."

"Oh, so the bar's low, then. Yeah, that would make sense for the praise, then," Jinx says, affecting a hurt air that's ruined entirely by her smirk.

Raven feels a pulse of thought pass through her at that, only recognizing it as coming from the more… amorous side of her brain after it was out.

"A low bar doesn't make a high jump less impressive, Jinx."

A brilliant blush burns itself across her face, a much lighter one mirrored on the meta's cheeks.

"That was poetic."

Jinx stares at the Titan in shock. If she didn't know better, she'd think the woman was returning her earlier flirting.

" _Not that I'd mind_ ," she adds to herself, fighting to keep her gaze focused ahead.

"Seriously, though, Jinx. Do you have any idea when the last time I had stimulating conversation, talking about things other than all the various depressive and gloomy aspects of this planet, was?"

"Well, I'm always up for some stimulation, and I  _have_ been told I'm quite good at giving it, too," Jinx says, grinning when the empath's face turns beet red.

Before she can respond, a yawn rips its way free, causing Raven to look at the clock.

"Wow. It has become quite late," she muses, just now recognizing how much time has passed with the woman.

"I  _must_ be good. You always struck me as the very observant type," Jinx laughs.

"Yes. And unfortunately, so is Nightwing," she sighs, running her hand through her dark hair. "I fear we must end this meeting, for today."

"A shame, if ever there was one," Jinx responds with a sigh of her own, some of her mirth vanishing. "I suppose the bird-brain keeps you guys on a short leash, huh?"

"In general, not until recently. But I do not  _socialize_  as my teammates do, so it will seem odd, regardless of whether I can come up with an acceptable story as to why I am returning without the gem, which they will surely know was my goal after some inspection and thought on it."

"Well, we're just going to have to fix that first part, aren't we? For the most part, all I have to talk to is Giz, except when someone gets stuck with us for an op. An' he ain't exactly big on… well…  _anything_  that I find interesting. You, on the other hand, are a lotta' fun once you get out from your shell, Raven. So I definitely want to do this again, soon."

Raven nods in agreement, having realized with no small amount of surprise that their goals were not the only similarity between them. Jinx's constant questions had revealed their tastes on entertainment to be surprisingly similar, and Raven could admit, if only to herself, that the realization had greatly helped her loosen up.

The two wordlessly leave their booth, a large number of bills mixing on the table to cover their, admittedly rather costly, patronage of the unassuming cafe.

Raven tears a piece of paper from the order notepad and scribbles something down, leaving it between their dishes.

A look of thought crosses her expression, and Jinx watches in curiosity as she rips another page free and writes something else down, pocketing the note for herself this time.

Jinx notices Raven place quite a bit more than would be expected of a tip on top of her note as they leave.

"Used to work as a waitress?" Jinx guesses.

The tiny bell over the door jingles in the still air of the night, and Raven gives her a shrug in response.

"Their sign says they closed as of three hours ago, roughly the exact time we entered. Only fair to pay them for their time," she reasons. "And their options were all quite delicious."

"And the note?"

"A recommendation for a tea they should buy for my next visit, which they'll be compensated well for."

"I'd say you're an addict if it wasn't tea. I still have no idea how you drank so much, even if it was amazing."

"Part of my physiology. Tea does wonders for my faculties, both mental and physical," Raven explains.

"Interesting. And the other note?"

At that, Raven's face confusingly turns red, and Jinx watches her internal debate with fascination.

Finally, Raven pulls the paper from her belt and jerks her arm forward, offering it to the meta.

"My… well, Rachel Roth's phone number. It's a burner phone, used mostly to assure those few who have reason to inquire about my other identity that she does exist. The Titans and League don't know about it, at least so I assume."

Blushing, Jinx takes the paper, her Cheshire smile reforming.

"Is this your way of saying you'd like to repeat this gathering?"

"It will be a safe way for us to communicate," Raven states, outwardly ignoring her quip. "It doesn't endanger me, and it doesn't run the risk of compromising you. If you sense anything in the event of calling that number, let me know, and I'll destroy it immediately."

"Okay… I get the feeling you're tryin' to say somethin' without actually sayin' it here, Raven. Just say it," Jinx laughs.

"You said your mission is to help the League and Titans retrieve the stolen items without being noticed. I could not knowingly subvert the authority of either, obviously. If a mysterious, blocked number were to call me on a civilian number with a tip, I would, however, have every reason to meet up with the anonymous informant and give them aid in tracking down leads, as quite a few vigilantes in the League do."

"You sure you ain't into the whole spy idea? Cause you seem like you'd be good at it," Jinx laughs, sliding the number into her pocket.

"Quite sure," the empath deadpans, not quite able to keep her emotions out of her voice this time.

" _Yeah, she's warming up_ ," Jinx laughs mentally.

"Well, then, I'll get in contact with the boss and let him know I may possibly have a contact who will collaborate to interfere with our team's discovery, and that we'll be setting up shop near Jump for a while."

"Then I should expect to see you again, soon," Raven says in way of parting, turning to head the opposite direction from Jinx.

"Count on it," the meta responds with her own grin…  
 ****************************

Raven walks through the doors to Titans Tower, an incredibly uncharacteristic smile curving her lips.

She doesn't remember the last time she had had  _fun_ , especially not with someone outside of her team.

" _The ease with which she dealt with the aftermath of my poor decision is remarkable, in itself._ "

As she goes deeper into the Tower, she finds herself looking forward already to their next meeting.

As soon as she goes through the living room and their de facto command center, though, her good mood dies in an instant.

Zatanna, the witch who condemned the Earth to ruination in her refusal to help her when she came begging, is sitting at the table.

Only she and Nightwing are present, and she feels their dual attentions on her as she enters entirely grating.

"Raven, good that you're here. The others are out hunting down leads, too. Zatanna's going to be temporarily assigned to the team, until these heists are solved," Nightwing says, saving her the trouble of growling a demand to know.

"Any help is good help," Raven muses, letting nothing show as she walks past them towards her room.

"Where's the gem?" Zatanna asks, impeding her progress with the accusing question.

Bristling, Raven turns back to them, finding Nightwing staring intently at her. Her lie came to her with shockingly less effort than she had thought it would require.

"I tracked some leads down, and discovered that some former H.I.V.E. students had stolen it. They appear to have been unaware of what they were stealing. At any rate, it seems to have cause them to go temporarily insane, if the scene I discovered was any indication."

"It can do that?" Nightwing asks, looking between the two women with surprise. "Seriously? And we just let it sit-"

"It cannot cause insanity," Raven disagrees. "What it can do is amplify things in a person, mostly power, but apparently strong emotions such as greed. Or  _could_ , at any rate. In their fight over it, one of them apparently shattered the gem. All that was left were bits of red rock, blood, and the traces of power draining into the universe to be cycled without its container."

"Well that's… fortunate? I mean, at least the thing can't do harm now, right?" Nightwing asks, apparently accepting her story.

"If it really got smashed, yeah, the power'd drain away without a whole container.  _If_ it got smashed," Zatanna reiterates, glaring at Raven. "Who knows what a demon or someone working with them would do to cover up the gem and keep it for personal use?"

At that, Nightwing visibly winces, even as Raven's eyes narrow to slits.

And then, she surprises them as a smirk forms on her lips, a slight laugh leaving her.

"Subtle to a fault. Oh, yes, please,  _do_ go on about my lineage and what it means of me as a person. This is news to me, as I'm sure you're aware. Perhaps I should bake you some cookies to reward your brilliant detective work, Zatanna."

At Zatanna's growing red tinge to her face, Raven brings her hand up to cup her chin, as if deep in thought.

"I mean, who knows what could've happened when I'd come to you on first arrival? I mean, the sperm from which I was sired might have accidentally caused something like Trigon the Terrible being  _prevented_  from coming here, instead of the team most of your League looks upon as children having to fight him when he actually got here. Could you imagine such a travesty? I'm still so very glad you know so much about what my blood means for my personality and character."

Nightwing winces once more, this time at the shocked expression on the sorceress's face.

Zatanna opens her mouth to argue, but finds that the criticism is not undeserved.

Only as Raven wordlessly turns and walks the rest of the way to her room does Zatanna realize that the empath had never answered her accusation, just distracted with well-earned guilt.

Through her facade of calm, Raven internally winces, wondering if perhaps Jinx's company had resulted in her actually saying what she was thinking for once.

" _If her emotions are any indication, perhaps I should speak my mind more,"_  she snarks mentally, a vague premonition of an ugly future coiling around her mind...  
 ****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I had quite a bit of fun with this, especially the banter between Zatanna and Raven. As I said earlier, I like Zatanna as a character, but from everything I know of the initial interaction between the two, she can very easily be sanctimonious. And I admit, I thought of the snark from Raven before I came up with the rest of the conversation that led to it.

As always, be sure to let me know your thoughts, be they positive or negative. See you next time!


	12. Meet the Family

#  XI. Meet the Family

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

_Several weeks later..._

"So how many do you think this'll make, if Giz's info is right?" Jinx asks as she and Raven move unseen across Jump City's rooftops.

Raven mentally takes count, going over the various items the two have managed to recapture since their initial meeting.

It had not taken Jinx long to call her, and it had taken only slightly more time for the empath to become accustomed to working with her when not out solving crises with the Titans.

"Hmm… I'd say we've gotten about a tenth of the list, now. And you've seen the list, so I'd say it'll be quite a large number, were we to count," she finally states.

"So, from what Giz said, do you think what this guy's got is going back to the museums?"

A few weeks ago, that question would've made Raven bristle and become defensive. Now, though…

Too many items on that list were too dangerous. They'd retrieved a lot of them, yes, but that didn't nearly translate to the same number being returned to the museum.

With a sigh, Raven thanks her luck that they've managed to find enough items of no consequence, or any magic at all, to return to the museums to avoid getting suspicions cast on herself.

The rest laid in wait in Nevermore, waiting for the pair to enact their plans of stripping them of the power as they had with the Gem of Blood at the start. That the museum noticed their return, and had no one to verify that they were still magical upon their return, was also working in their favor.

"Possibly. All I could gather from his report to you is that it's some form of generator, running on magic. That could be quite literally half of the list, and I won't know until we get it. Assuming the intel's right."

"With Giz? C'mon, Rae, you know better by now," Jinx laughs, going into a somersault over a gap between roofs.

"Yes, I suppose. Still, it's rather difficult to glean anything from secondhand reports of thirdhand rumors. As this current hunt proves."

Raven glares at the woman when a mischievous grin spreads across her face, a bad feeling taking hold in her stomach.

"What're you up to, Jinx?"

"Nothin', Rae. Anyways, when we get this thing, don't you think it's 'bout time we work through some of those other ones? I've been getting better."

At this, Raven can simply nod in agreement.

The pair had been draining the most dangerous items as they got them. But Jinx's lack of experience with the powerful magic and mental strain of astral projection has been a hinderance.

She doesn't critique Jinx on it, as it is only natural that she, born in Azarath and raised in the Temple's meditations, would have more skill and stamina at it. That does not, however, negate the feelings of irritation and guilt that come from her new friend, which Raven can now admit she is, in waves every time they pull away from Nevermore to stop her unconsciousness.

Nor does it negate the building number of items captured and hidden in Nevermore, the team finding them far more quickly than they can work through them.

"You really have. And I worked on a few myself two days ago. There're only the spear and that necklace remaining in wait."

That her psyche had begun to be damaged from the emotions of some of the items resting in her mind was a matter that needn't be said.

"Rae, you don't need to do that," Jinx says, concern rising from her. "Isn't the whole point of my help to make it less straining on you?"

"It is. And your presence is undoubtedly helpful, Jinx. However, as you've gotten better, so have I, and I can take more now."

"And your powers've been off the charts lately," Jinx adds with a grin.

Raven can't deny that the mental exercise  _has_  given her powers considerable amplification.

" _Unfortunately, Nightwing and Zatanna also notice this, and have surely begun suspecting things,"_  a voice hisses in the far reaches of her mind.

Raven lifts Jinx into her arms as the pair crosses a particularly large gap, putting the meta down as soon as they reach the other side.

Both of them notice a strange sense of loss when the contact ends.

"You know I could just fly us there," Raven muses, floating next to the panting Jinx.

"That was fun for a while. Started getting lazy. Need to keep in shape," Jinx huffs, taking a brief rest.

Raven shakes her head, an amused smile curling her lips in a manner she is pleased has become accustomed around the hex-caster.

In the course of the weeks since their meeting, the two have  _definitely_  become friends, for the feline meta to be able to bring such an expression to be common.

" _Close friends,_ " she admits, if only to herself.

The Titans have noticed her lack of presence in the Tower, but thankfully, they are as occupied with hunting the relics down as the pair is.

" _Nightwing, however, is more observant. Both on the job and in my free time, I'm with Jinx increasingly more. Thank Azar Beast Boy hasn't smelled her presence on me."_

The thought brings a sudden blush to her face, another occurrence becoming a norm around the meta, and far less pleasing.

" _Who knows what he'd think? I'd never hear the end of it,"_  she groans.

With Jinx officially authorized to aid Raven in capturing, neutralizing, and/or returning the items to their museums, none having a priority, the two have managed a lot of covered ground together.

The D.M.A.'s vast information network has certainly not hurt things.

"So how do you think this kinda' thing went down?" Jinx asks, taking up her run again.

"Terrible priority put on items that should be locked in a dimensional vault?" Raven deadpans with a raised eyebrow.

"Smartass. I mean the whole Intergang thing. They deal with Apokolips tech. The hell're they doing with a stolen magical artifact?"

"To them, the technology may as well be magic. Money's money, and I don't see them being a group that's picky about how they make it," Raven shrugs.

Jinx begins to respond when Raven raises her hand, pointing down at the street below.

Jinx immediately drops to her knees, Raven grounding herself and mirroring her as both look over the lip of the building.

Down below, just on the inside of an alley, a group of three men are covered in shadows.

The appearance is not all that suspicious, in and of itself.

The fact that one of them is the two-bit thief they followed to the scene is.

"High and low?" Jinx muses, gazing at the men as a silver glow coats them.

"I'd like to get the three of them, if possible," Raven responds with a thoughtful frown.

"Well, we could always just push them out into a bottleneck. You work your way to the other end of the alley, hide in shadows, and then I throw some bolts at them to send them your way?" Jinx ponders.

"Meeting me in a dark alleyway. Yes, I think that experience should put them into an  _agreeable_  mood," Raven says with a nod.

Without another word, Raven floats her way back the way they'd come, making sure she's out of the gang's view before crossing the street. As she floats down to the street and crouches down in the shadows of the alley, she lets some of her illusory magic take hold, her body shifting unseen.

As soon as she's sure the appearance of her red eyes are in place, and that her garb looks like something other than the leotard and cloak wrapped around her, she raises her hand to the sky.

To anyone looking, the small spark of black would look like they gazed at the sun and had spots in their eyes.

With her metahuman eyes and her back to the sun, though, Jinx sees the signal perfectly well.

Grinning, she points at the ground near the gang members, her eyes and finger both glowing with pink sparks of light.

With a  _snap_ , her power unleashes itself and rushes like a missile to the ground below.

When it meets the street, the area immediately impacted explodes in a shower of dust and chunks of concrete.

As the Intergang thief and his buyers look frantically around, Jinx unleashes another hex bolt, this one landing almost at their feet, a spiderweb of cracks taking form in the ground.

The thief reaches into his overcoat and pulls free a staff of some kind, the top hosting a glowing silver sphere.

"Oh, bad move, kiddo," she whispers with a laugh. " _ **Gelu Incendia**_ ," she intones, pointing at the sphere.

A scream sounds as the silver glow coming from it changes, becoming a dark emerald green.

He throws the staff away just as the sphere shatters, green flames springing to life to entirely cover the mouth of the alley.

" _Well, thankfully Raven was right about them not being the brightest,"_  she muses, grinning as the three men turn and run at full speed away from her harmless illusion.

Raven lets a grin show as the three men come running carelessly in her direction.

" _She_ is  _improving_ ," she muses happily.

"What the hell's that!?" one of the buyers demands, beginning to wheeze as they make their way down the alley.

"Damned magic, that's what it was!" the other buyer growls. "The hell'd you steal that damn thing from, Jack!?"

Jack, their thief, simply puts more effort into his run, clutching tightly to a pistol as he goes.

Raven doesn't miss the telltale glow within the pistol, power ringing through the air from its wielder's frantic emotions.

Finally, the men reach Raven, and she lets the illusion take a more firm hold, watching them falter as the alley seems to be drained of its sunlight around them.

" _ **Tsk tsk, it's bad to take things that don't belong to you,"**_  she says, her doubled voice making them all jump.

A portal takes her, and she materializes in the middle of the three men, all of them looking a different direction.

" _ **Especially if you don't know how to handle what might come for it,**_ Jack," she adds, getting a startling amount of amusement as the three men dive to the ground.

Smirking, she sends her soul-self out and grabs the pistol from him.

"Wh-What the hell're  _you_!?" the less knowledgeable of the buyers gasps, crawling on his back away from her.

"Dead," Jack growls, the first to rise.

He draws a small box from his jacket, and Raven watches in fascination as the box unfolds and transforms into a rather large automatic rifle, the same glow around it as the pistol.

Raven immediately slams her shields into place around her as the gunfire starts, the illusion making them seem red to the men.

What she isn't expecting is the power in each bullet.

" _Clearly we underestimated what he stole,"_  she hisses mentally.

A grunt of effort leaves her throat as one of the buyers moves behind her, her attention focused on not becoming eviscerated by the magical bullets.

When his fist connects with the back of her skull, her concentration slips and her barrier comes crashing down.

Pushing into motion, she rolls to the side mid-fall, the bullets hitting the buyer instead of her.

Jack follows her roll with more gunfire, forcing her into constant motion.

Things take a drastic change when he seems to wizen up and aim ahead of her current roll.

One of the bullets slams into her, sending her rolling on the ground with pain flooding her mind.

Pressing on the bleeding hole in her arm, she jumps away, letting her power of flight give her retreat extra height.

When she comes down, she realizes that her illusion has almost fallen. And yet her eyes remain red, and an alien snarl comes from her lips.

The smirk that Jack wears immediately fades at the sound, his hand visibly shaking.

" _ **That was a poor decision**_ ," she says, wondering at whether her subconscious held to the illusion or if her current outward appearance is more distressing.

Deciding to worry about it later, she raises her hand palm-out at the thief, and black light sparks to life around her skin.

He gives an echoing scream as the gun begins to glow in kind, and he throws the weapon violently away just as it explodes at her feet.

Feeling her wound already knitting together, Raven grabs up the dimly glowing cylinder under her.

" _ **Thanks for the business,**_ _Jack,_ " she states, making sure his gaze is frozen on her.

Duly watched, she brings his pistol up and squeezes down, the flare of her soul-self unseen in her closed palm.

When her hand opens once more, the pistol lies in broken metal shards, another glowing cylinder in her hand.

Raven subtly sends another flicker of black light into the air, and Jinx's power washes over the alley, green flames rising up in a blinding circle around her.

With the telltale blackness of her soul-self covered, Raven slides down into the pavement, the flames dying as soon as she rises next to Jinx. By the time Jinx turns around, her illusion is gone, and no small amount of relief forms when her extra eyes and growl go with it.

As the incoherent shouts and screaming came from the alleyway, the women move further onto the roof and out of sight.

Jinx begins to make a quip before she stops cold, eyes widening in shock.

"Holy shit, Rae! You've got a hole in your arm!"

"Observant as ever. I was not expecting the power that these generators would give to his weapons," she adds, handing the cylinders to the meta.

"We gotta' get that shit disinfected, Raven. Just cause it's energy doesn't mean you-"

"I don't get infections," Raven interrupts. "And as you know, I heal quickly. It's barely a graze, so stop worrying."

Despite the initial pain, it really is, too, her skin already almost knitted together in a light pink scar.

Jinx leans close and stares at the wound, frowning in thought.

She nods her head as something meets her scrutiny, and she takes a quick step back.

"Okay, if you say so, I'll believe you. But we need to get your cape cleaned, or bird-brain'll ask questions."

"Fine, I suppose I'll just have to partake in your company longer than the half hour I said I would for dealing with this today," Raven sighs, the exasperation ruined by her smile.

"Tragic," Jinx agrees with her own grin. "Well, since we're going to get that cape washed, we might as well kill two birds with one stone. I gotta' drop some supplies for Giz off at mysterious, undisclosed locations which may or may not be indoors, and have a machine for doing that kind of thing."

Raven's grin fades in an instant, surprise taking her expression instead.

"Are you sure? Knowing what you do and being invited to one of your safehouses are entirely separate things. Won't you-"

"Relax, Rae, I was planning on inviting you over anyway. Now I just have a good incentive for you to agree. Steel's got to know by now who's helping our team, and he hasn't done a thing to disagree."

Raven smiles once again, raising her uninjured arm up in a vague gesture.

"Then lead the way. Does Gizmo know who's helping you?"

"I didn't tell him I was getting help, but I'd be shocked if he doesn't. 'Sides, you were right before. You ended up getting shot because you got information from me that I got from Gizmo finding rumors. If you can actually just get the info from him, then you can check the reports, and we won't be running as blind with someone who actually knows about these things."

With that, Jinx steps into Raven's personal space, a grin forming.

"I spent some energy on that illusion. Mind giving me a lift back?"

Smirking, Raven wraps her arm around the meta's waist.

The sensation returns with a vengeance, almost enough to cause a shiver to run through both women, but they fall into Raven's portal before they can ponder it…  
 *************************

As soon as the women walk into the unassuming brownstone home, Raven feels attention focused like a harsh laser on her.

"'ave you stinking lost yer mind!?" Gizmo shrieks, not sure which woman to set his glare on.

Unfazed, Jinx extends her hand to Raven with an impatient gesture.

Sighing, Raven unsnaps her cape and hands it to the meta, who quickly disappears down a hallway with the fabric.

"'Kay, let's try  _the hell're_ you _doing here_?" Gizmo reiterates with a slight growl at the empath.

"Standing?" Raven offers with her deadpan, an eyebrow raised at the small inventor.

His gaze moves down the hallway Jinx disappeared into, and with a satisfied nod, he grabs a small box off his table and advances on the Titan.

"Listen, cludge-head, 'cuz I'm asking once. I don't like the answer, then this lets out a frequency that with  _your_ senses, should be painful as hell at the least."

Raven's eyes narrow, sensing the implication in his words.

"What have you mentioned 'bout Jinx, our team, and our op, and to who'd you spill to?"

Even as her irritation rises, she finds his loyalty to her friend somewhat touching, though she'll never voice the sentiment.

"Nothing and no one, in that order."

At his skeptical glare, she bristles, her body leaning menacingly forward.

"I understand the seriousness of keeping your presences a secret. Further, I  _don't_  make promises to friends and not keep them. My friendship and professional dealings with Jinx are strictly off the grid."

"Yeah? Seein' as how you're goin' behind Grayson's back to meet her at all, I ain't puttin' much stock in that promise. Hell, even if you aren't lyin', you're spending so much time with her that he's  _gonna'_  notice, especially with the witch around to keep an eye on your every move."

Raven's eyes widen at the use of Nightwing's real name, but remembering who the team works for makes her surprise quickly disappear. The implication of Zatanna's purpose with the Titans, something she'd figured out after a few days in her presence, is far less impressive of a deduction.

"Even were we not friends, a relationship I don't have enough of to jeopardize freely, what benefit would betrayal gain me? At best, I end up pissing Mr. Bones off for compromising an operation and being held in a cell, where even my  _robust_ physiology may not be able to hold up for long periods of time with him."

Gizmo's eyes widen at that, his mouth gaping in surprise.

"How the-"

"At worst, I end up getting my friend killed, before I'm then hunted down by a group made for catching people like myself and killed by them in retribution," Raven continues. "Betrayal would make no sense. As for my…  _insubordination_ … what I do in my free time is none of Nightwing's concern, just the same as how I get the items so idiotically lost is not his concern."

"Humans don't hafta make sense," the inventor argues. "And following orders is what you guys're all about, otherwise there's no way that an alien princess or a princess of Hell'd listen to someone with all the bark of Batman without anywhere near the bite that keeps the League in line around him."

His comment brings Raven's heart rate skyrocketing as she pales. Settling on her usual snark, she recovers quickly with a raised eyebrow.

"I've nothing to do with Hell. At least, not in any way familiar with this dimension. Nobody but the Church, League, and Titans should know about that… Does Jinx know?"

"The number Jinx's callin', Rachel Roth? Knowing the name made it pretty easy to make the connections. And hell no, I ain't tellin' her. If it comes from me that she shouldn't trust you, she'll just think I'm bein' a protective older brother or some shit."

Raven lets out an unwilling sigh of relief, her mask fading for a brief moment.

"I can't satisfy your suspicions, Gizmo. All I can do is say that I've no intention of endangering your organization as a whole, and everything that entails, nor am I tricking Jinx with my aid in her work nor our friendship. Whether you believe me or not is, realistically, something I have no effect on."

Gizmo stares silently at her for a small eternity, eyes seeming to scrutinize her down to her soul.

Finally, his expression eases, and he gives a terse nod before throwing the box behind himself.

It bounces harmlessly on the floor, and Raven finds herself surprised when no pain emanates when the button presses against the floor.

Instead, a mechanical whirring sounds, and a smug grin forms on his face.

"Camera set up in the roof tiles, set to record to a server. I needed to make sure that Jinx ain't braindead trustin' you, and this makes sure if we ever get takin' down, you come with us when the server uploads all files on it to a program I set up."

The threat doesn't faze Raven in the slightest, more impressed at his ability to trick her than the potential blackmail.

Before she can respond, Jinx appears in the room again, taking the scene in.

"No one's dead, no screaming, and Giz doesn't have a detonator in his hand."

She steps up to Raven's side and pulls her into a hug, grinning widely as the empath tenses.

"Welcome to the family, Rae."

Raven winces as the unfamiliar sensation once again takes hold in her mind, quickly making her blood feel like it's alight with energy.

The sensation quickly vanishes when the meta lets her go, a frown almost forming on the empath's face.

Jinx raises her cape in front of her, her grin even wider.

"Turns out washing it wasn't necessary. Some detergent and some heavy scrubbing got that right out."

With a nod, Raven reattaches her cape, feeling her communicator vibrate in her pocket as she does.

With a sigh, she opens it to read over the alert.

"Duty calls. Those cylinders aren't artifacts on the list, but they were probably made from a few. I think that, as Gizmo pointed out, Nightwing's going to notice my continued absences from the Tower. I think that we should stay out of touch for a few days. I'll convince them they'd be better off not inquiring, and you can try to analyze what those things can do in the meantime. Agreed?"

"You promise to call the next time you've got free time, and I'm all for that," Jinx responds.

With a smile, Raven nods before exiting their base through a portal, not risking being seen walking anywhere near their safehouse.

As she goes, she fails to notice Jinx's wistful expression at her leaving, nor Gizmo's cocky smirk aimed at the metahuman. She does, however, notice her own blush, and the not unpleasant sensation still coursing through her...  
 ****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Gelu Incendia- Latin: "cold fire".

Mr. Bones is the head of the D.E.O., and is essentially a living radioactive skeleton.

Be sure as always to let me know your thoughts, be they positive or not. See you next time!


	13. Transition

#  XII. Transition

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven sits at the table, fighting hard to keep a frown from her face.

A week without Jinx has left her in a distressingly bad mood, and the conference summons from their leader after their training has certainly not improved it. Nor has the subject of said meeting.

"-I mean, if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong, Raven. You've managed a ton of retrievals, but without figuring out who's pulling the strings, more are just going to keep vanishing. Clearly, you're getting intel from somewhere, and I'd prefer to know where, and how it's possible these people know so much without knowing the whole story. You should take one of us with you, at least, so we can cover your back. Has being on your own, following whatever mysterious  _leads_  you have that you can't share, gotten you anywhere?" Nightwing demands, exhaustion clear in his voice.

Raven, exhausted herself from the investigations she and Jinx have conducted, is sympathetic to her leader.

On the matter of him suggesting she needs to be leashed, as it were, not so much.

"Not to pick sides here, but he's kinda' right, Rae," Cyborg interjects.

Her slight glare has him raising his hands in surrender, a disarming grin on his face.

"Not what I meant. You've gotten a lot of items crossed off that list, but we don't know nothin' about  _how_  you're gettin' 'em. We could get more, faster, if ya' at least threw us a bone here, girl."

"That's all I'm saying, Raven," Nightwing adds. "Look, we know you enough to know that if you won't tell us how you're coming upon these leads consistently, then it can't be something good."

"I could take a few guesses," Zatanna mutters, having sat for the last half hour of pointless inquisition in irritated silence.

Raven raises an eyebrow at that, an amused smirk forming.

That the Titans had become used to the expression on her face recently speaks volumes to how much her friend has rubbed off on her, and she briefly ponders whether it is something to push away.

" _Their reactions are amusing enough alone to let it go,_ " she muses, taking a guilty pleasure in the curiosity and discomfort coming from her friends.

"Please, share with the class, Zatanna," she states, fighting to keep her smirk from growing at the patch of red brought out on the sorceress's face.

"Alright, look, I love a catfight much as the next guy, but I'm tired of this," Beast Boy says, glaring at the women. "You two've been passive aggressive since she got here, and I just don' get it."

"Friend Beast Boy is correct," Starfire adds. "The… discomfort… that comes from you two being incapable of civilly remaining in the same area as the other is making the tension nearly unbearable. Why do you two hate each other so?"

Raven meets Zatanna's eyes, an eyebrow raised in silent question.

Their concern is certainly not misplaced, given the open antagonism they'd mutually agreed to deal with since Raven's initial argument. It was uncharacteristic of her to openly antagonize someone other than a villain, undoubtedly making the Titans remember Tara's brief stint with their group.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it can't be all that bad," Cyborg reasons.

Nightwing visibly winces, drawing both sorceresses' attentions.

"Going to weigh in too, Dick?" Zatanna asks with a perfectly icy tone.

"Oh, hell no, I'm staying out of this. Long as you two aren't on jobs together, I'm perfectly comfortable not opening  _that_ Pandora's Box," he states.

"You know of the cause for the tension, Love Richard?" Starfire inquires with a frown.

"Enough to know better than to get involved in it. We're big girls, we can handle it ourselves," Zatanna states with a hint of a snarl.

"Which is kinda' the problem," Beast Boy cuts in. "You two should be the best chance we got at hunting all this stuff down. If you're arguing all the time, that means you aren't working together on some spell or something that could just, like, make them glow on a map or somethin'."

Raven and Zatanna once again meet with mirrored glares, Raven's own showing clear signs of her exhaustion.

Finally, Zatanna gives an audible sigh, putting her head in her hands before quickly shaking them through her hair.

"Look, these kinds of things have a very niche information network connected to them. My contacts haven't gotten me  _nearly_  the results that yours have. It's frustrating," she admits.

Raven's eyes widen in surprise, temporarily forgetting her irritation as Zatanna's own tiredness makes itself known.

"I… It isn't that I hate you, or anything, not really," Raven finally sighs. "Look, we met under bad circumstances, and you undoubtedly made the already terrible situation that much more dangerous and harder on everyone based on preconceptions and prejudices."

Bristling, Zatanna's eyes narrow to their former glare, her mouth opening to growl at her.

"I didn't give you much thought, since then, if I'm honest. Since I gathered the Titans together and gotten accustomed to this dimension, I accepted that I went about my introduction the wrong way. But then you showed up, basically telling us that some of the most dangerous items in the entire reality were stolen from some rudimentary security glass in museums all over the world instead of being guarded in the Tower of Fate, or some other transdimensional stronghold. All the…  _negativity_ … of that initial encounter came flooding back, and I can admit that it's not fair to you."

When she finishes, she finds all of them staring at her in shock, her own mind reeling at the bout of honesty, and the grudge she'd thought dead and buried.

"Whoa… Okay, I gotta' ask for that story. I didn't think you  _did_  grudges, Rae," Beast Boy finally says, breaking the silence.

Zatanna takes in the story, shocked by the honesty as everyone else. And yet, her suspicions cannot seem to leave her mind.

For all intents and purposes, through both words and actions, the Titan had more than proven her wrong in her assumption about her demonic heritage making her a threat.

And yet…

And yet a cloud seems to take hold of her mind, making her thoughts become unfocused.

She realizes she has no reason to be suspicious of the demon halfling, and yet, the suspicions refuse to leave her.

And her instincts were wrong rarely enough that she knows better than to question them, regardless of how odd their reactions are.

The warning bells her mind sends her are utterly obscured by fog, going utterly ignored.

Outwardly, she sits up straight, meeting Raven's gaze once more.

"Alright, look, we don't have to like each other, but we should at least agree to be civil," the sorceress finally sighs, her mind and words disconnected. "They're right, we'll do better working together. I agree I screwed up, and you agree that I wasn't entirely in the wrong. Deal?"

After much consideration, Raven's head slowly nods, her body visibly relaxing.

"Now, let's move past this, so we can at least figure out what's going on with all these robberies. My original point still stands, Raven, and I can't apologize for bringing it up. If  _my_  contacts, covering multiple planets and planes of reality, aren't as helpful as yours, there are only so many possible explanations."

Raven ponders silently to herself, her own warning bells going off, and not being nearly as quiet as Zatanna's. Something about the sorceress seems  _off_ , yet Raven's usually impeccable intuition gives her nothing to work with.

"My sources are of questionable character, but their intel is always on the mark," she finally states, giving the Titans nothing to work with.

"How  _questionable_?" Nightwing asks with a slight glare.

"Questionable enough. Zatanna is raising a point of exactly  _why_  I go to such sources; the less savory magic users are usually the most informed about items of a dangerous nature."

Raven finds herself inwardly amazed at how easy the lie slips from her, wondering if Jinx perhaps had a point about her potential at subterfuge.

"You aren't offerin' get outta jail free cards to psychos, are ya, Rae?" Cyborg asks, turning slightly pale at the thought.

"Nothing of the sort," she snorts dismissively. "I'm not talking of people like Mumbo Jumbo or Blood's cultists. They give me information, and in exchange, I trade them a book, or a contact they're interested in if the other party agrees, or some knickknacks I've acquired over the years, but nothing such as favors or free reign. There are dangers, of course, but I would say that the results have made me unable to question my methods. But I will focus more on finding those who would give me information on who's stealing rather than where stolen things are, from now on," she adds.

"Can you give us even one name to work with, Raven?" Nightwing sighs.

"They aren't the kind of people you find in a phone book, Richard."

That they believe she has a network of underground black magicians and creatures speaks volumes, but Raven chooses not to dwell on it too much.

"Is all this why ya' haven' been around the Tower as much?" Beast Boy asks, causing the empath to fight against a wince of her own.

"No. That is a… as you pointed out, our antagonism was uncomfortable to you all. I apologize for that. But as an empath, I was not unaffected, either, and so I have taken to removing myself from it as I can. It will hopefully become better now," she adds, giving them no indication of her enjoyment of said outings.

"Alright," Nightwing finally sighs. "I don't like it.  _Really_  don't like it, Raven. But as long as you and Zee can be civil and work on some better leads for the rest of us, you're correct about being unable to argue with the results."

The sorceresses nod, the tension finally leaving the room.

"Alright. Everyone, I think we  _all_ need some R&R. It's been almost two months non-stop on this case, and even the criminals have been laying low recently, a point saying that whoever's doing all this is a heavy hitter, if nothing else. Everyone, spend the day relaxing and catching up on much-needed rest. That's an order," Nightwing adds as he rises from his seat.

Everyone releases a sigh of relief, Starfire floating quickly behind her lover as he leaves the room.

"I'm gonna' go fix up my baby. Plasmus did a serious number on the paintjob last week," Cyborg says, jumping to his feet.

Sighing, Zatanna slowly rises from her own chair, her tophat popping into existence in her palm with a burst of smoke.

"I got a show I suddenly don't need to cancel in Vegas. Either of you want to come?" she asks.

"Seriously? Dude, I'm all for that!" Beast Boy shouts.

Jinx's previous statement comes to Raven's mind, and a smile takes hold before she can stop it.

"I have standing plans, actually. I apologize, again. Hopefully we can move past everything now that it's aired."

With that, she floats out of the room, missing Zatanna's suspicious glare.

As soon as she shuts her door, Rachel Roth's cell phone leaves her pocket, fingers dancing quickly over the numbers...  
 ****************************

Raven sits on a barstool, the cushion doing little to comfort her in the obnoxious beat flooding the club.

" _Dear Azar, why'd I agree to_ here _?"_ Raven groans mentally, fighting against a growing headache.

And then, Jinx appears on the booth next to her, a grin on her lips.

A part of her mind refuses to allow her focus to go anywhere but on the meta's clothes, a combination of leather skirt and sleeveless blouse.

" _Because she's very persuasive when she wants to be,_ " a voice in her mind offers helpfully, Raven refusing to acknowledge the blush burning away on her face.

"Hey there. What's someone so gorgeous doin' sittin' alone at a bar?" Jinx asks in way of greeting.

Raven briefly senses a pressure in the back of her head, a wave of panic going through her before she recognizes its source as internal. And annoying, even as her emotion is sturdy in its persistence.

"Feeling a lot less lonely, now," she says, both women's faces turning bright scarlet.

"That a fact?" Jinx asks, recovering quickly.

"Undoubtedly," Raven remarks with a smile.

"Two Ultimate Mudslides," Jinx says to the bartender eyeing the two.

In short order, two glasses slide their way, Raven glaring suspiciously at what, for all intents and purposes, looks like a milkshake with chocolate running through it.

"Alright, I know you're a huge tea fiend, so I figure we gotta' start somewhere. Try it. I almost guarantee you'll like it," Jinx says before taking a slow pull on her own.

Raven tentatively picks her glass up and brings it to her lips.

Throwing caution to the wind, she takes a decent-sized drink of it.

Her face immediately contorts as the vodka burns her throat. The chocolate and cream takes over, then, quickly easing the sensation.

"This is not a milkshake," she deadpans, staring contemplatively at the glass.

"As you had no doubt figured out already," Jinx laughs. "Other than the fact that it tastes different from what it looks, what do you think?"

"It… is not terrible," Raven finally decides.

Frowning in thought, she takes another drink, keeping it sitting for her taste buds to analyze before swallowing. With the slower flow, the alcohol burns considerably less, the taste greatly overpowering the booze.

"It is quite good."

Smiling from ear to ear, Jinx finishes her own off in two drafts, a dark red color staining her cheeks and neck.

"Told you. Certainly hits the sweet tooth, don't it?"

"I really must work on your grammar," Raven sighs before finishing her glass.

"I can talk just fine, Rae, thanks," she snarks. "Clearly one drink wasn't enough, if you're thinking of things that mundane."

"You can buy me as many drinks as you want, Jinx, but my physiology makes it a futile endeavor," Raven says with a shrug, not letting her amusement show.

"Alright, let's test that. Hey, a Blind Russian for my friend and an Angel's Lips for me," she calls to the bartender, receiving an amused smirk from him. "I like sweets. Sue me," she adds with a slight growl.

Shrugging, the man goes to work on the drinks, Jinx turning to meet Raven's stoic stare.

" _Think she'd prefer demon's lips?"_ Raven's emotional avatar ponders, causing her blush to darken.

Two more drinks appear before them, and Jinx smirks at her, tapping a finger to the tip of her glass.

"Sweet enough to not burn your mouth off, but with enough booze in it that I'll know if you're messin' with me. Go on, then," she laughs.

Her mirth vanishes when Raven shrugs and downs half the drink, barely even wincing as the alcohol takes hold in her system.

"You are correct, that is  _quite_  good. I still prefer my tea, though. Either way, I'm just as likely to get drunk," she adds, grinning at the meta.

"Well that'll make tonight more interestin'," she finally says, tipping her own drink to her lips before Raven can comment on it.

When she finishes the drink, Jinx's face is a shade of red similar to Raven's.

"Not much point boozin' you up if it isn't going to make the club any better for you. I didn't count on that…"

Raven's eyes widen, a warm smile forming as she finishes her drink.

"You could have perhaps saved yourself the stress if you had given me the chance to offer another option," she muses.

"I… well, guess it's irrelevant."

Her dejected voice quickly fades as her grin reforms, her cheeks gradually losing their color.

"Now, then, much as I want to ever-broaden your horizons, it looks like my plan to loosen you up so you can enjoy our outing is not going to happen. But I'm nothing if not determined. I  _did_  pick this place for a reason. So… care to dance?"

Raven notices the slight nervousness in the meta and finds herself wondering at its cause.

"If you could call this  _music_ ," Raven finally responds. "Really, Jinx? A  _club_? Even if the alcohol  _did_  loosen me up, I'm an empath. You had to know the kinds of things that would be forcing their way into my brain."

Laughing, the meta grabs her wrist and pulls her to her feet.

"Yep, a club. If the things you're talkin' about are what it'll take to make you loosen up, then the booze wasn't needed anyway. 'Sides, nobody's going to think that pink hair extensions are out of place, and there's not a chance that we're going to be recognized in here. Especially not with you dressed so…  _well_  for the occasion," she adds, letting a hungry gaze drag up to the empath's ever-blushing face.

She had decided, when Jinx had told her unquestionably where they were going to meet, to dig into the box in the back of her closet. Until meeting Jinx, it had gone largely ignored and forgotten save for dumping new pieces she bought to appease Kori on their forced shopping outings into it.

With her increasing social visits with Jinx, she has decided to add considerably to her wardrobe choices since then, if for no other reason than that her uniform would undoubtedly draw attention to the pair.

For this evening, she had decided to go with a pair of tight black jeans. What would surely convince people that it was not the same person who frequently flew above their city protecting the citizens, though, was her shirt.

It is a purple, reflective material, coming down to just barely cover the tops of her hips. Some very rarely-seen jewelry adorned her as well, a thin silver chain holding a metal ankh just below the shirt's neckline and a thin band of silver covering the base of her right thumb, index, and middle finger each.

A simple illusion also shifts her features, making her skin appear to any but herself and Jinx to be a slightly mocha shade. The bluish shade to her hair is turned entirely black beneath the harsh club lights.

More importantly, her chakra gem, a sure giveaway of her identity, appears to not exist at all, and her usually bright purple eyes are colored a warm, intelligent shade of brown.

"Seriously, Rae, if this is the response, I'm going to drag you to clubs more often. You look… I mean,  _damn_ …"

"Thank you," Raven responds, sure her entire head is red at this point.

Raven gasps as Jinx pulls her off-balance, her body almost falling into her as she begins swaying to the music.

"Save your thanks for later," Jinx purrs, her breath burning hot on Raven's ear.

A shiver of unknown origin ripples its way through the empath, her blush and gaze both taking on a darker shade.

Her amorous emotion takes the distraction as a perfect opportunity to assert itself once more, and her grin visibly changes in nature.

Jinx shivers this time, not having any issues with knowing its cause.

The two quickly find their stride in the music, Raven shocking the meta with how quickly she begins matching her movements.

Raven recognizes the foothold she's given to her emotions. The sensations running through her, though, make her by far less inclined to see it as anything negative.

The sensations quickly intensify for both women, the heat and throbbing beat vibrating the floor working their way through the two.

Before either recognizes the time spent pressing against each other, they find themselves making their way into the cool night's air.

Their banter is light as they walk towards Jinx's apartment, nowhere near ready or willing for the night to end.

"So, I mean, really, what the hell, Rae?" Jinx complains as they take residence on the meta's couch. "It just ain't fair that you have the cool powers  _and_  you don't get smashed."

Laughing, Raven fails to react as Jinx leans against her side, the sensation that runs through her refusing to let her argue against her.

"I told you I have a strange physiology. Alcohol simply doesn't inhibit my self-control or level of comfort… I suppose if I drank enough of it, as in a distillery, I could become inebriated, but my metabolism simply works faster than any stimulant. If it makes you feel better, I also can't use painkillers."

"Okay, feel a little better, I guess, though that undoubtedly sucks. So… wait.  _Nothing_  psychoactive works on you?"

"I've never gone shopping around to test the limits, but that is correct," Raven agrees, not understanding Jinx's large grin.

"Does that make me like a fine liquor? 'Cause I definitely lower your inhibitions and make you less repressed," the meta laughs.

Raven finds her face feeling as though it has lit on fire, finding that the analogy is not inaccurate.

"Well, since  _you_  are drunk and likely won't remember much anyway, I suppose there's no harm in admitting you aren't wrong," the empath muses.

" _Ha_! Don' count on it, Rae. My metabolism's fast, too. Metahuman, remember? Still, you might be right. I don't wanna' run the risk of forgetting that kinda' leverage over you. Luckily, I know a sure-fire way to remember tonight," she laughs, slightly slurring her speech even as the alcohol burns its way out of her.

"Oh? And what would this mythical solution be?" Raven asks with a smirk and upraised brow.

In response, Jinx turns to face her, both of them quickly resembling tomatoes as their eyes remain locked.

Without warning, Jinx's hand fists in Raven's hair, and she leans forward, the kiss sending Raven's emotions and senses ablaze…  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

For a reference of what Raven's wearing, I just went with a reference image of what she looks like when attending high school as Rachel Roth. Also, I'm not exactly an alcohol drinker, so for the scene, I basically went with the few that I know of off the top of my head that are sweet in nature.

I had quite a bit of fun writing this scene, once again with the entire scene spawned from the idea of Zatanna and Raven's confrontation and Jinx trying to loosen Raven up. Whether you liked the scene or not, be sure to let me know and why. See you next time!


	14. Not So Complex

#  XIII. Not So Complex

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven finds herself drowning in the sensations attacking her mind.

The feel of Jinx's lips is incredibly soft against her own, the sensation unlike any she's felt before.

Hints of the alcohol mix with the herbs in her last drink of the night, forming an interesting flavor hitting her.

Jinx's hand loosens in her hair, moving down to gently cup her neck as she presses more into the kiss.

The moan is what wakes Raven up. The sound is relatively quiet, swallowed between their lips, and its origin is a mystery.

But it is enough to bring her back to reality, and with unwilling slowness, she gently pushes on Jinx's shoulders.

The two separate, the noises of their gasping breaths the only sound in the small apartment.

Something in Raven's expression sets Jinx on edge.

Her confusion over her reaction, as well as the stress of finally realizing how much her control has slipped over the evening, is causing an internal war within the empath's mind.

Jinx seems to read something into her reaction that doesn't exist, further confusing Raven as the scent of her regret fills the air.

"Rae, I'm so sorry. I thought… Well, it's pretty obvious what I thought, I guess," the meta sighs, pulling away from her.

"You did nothing wrong," Raven argues, eyeing her with obvious bafflement.

Her mind goes over the sensations, and her blush becomes even darker.

"Actually, I'd say you did something very  _right_."

Jinx relaxes somewhat at that, no longer looking ready to bolt.

Her hand tentatively reaches out to rest on Raven's side, the sensation sending shivers through the empath.

"Then why do you look so worried? It's just, you were sending some pretty damn clear signals at the club, and for a while now, really, and I just figured-"

"Calm, Jinx," Raven sighs, gently grabbing her hand and squeezing it. "I… there is nothing  _wrong_ , per se."

"Look, I planned on making a move tonight," Jinx admits. "I was planning on doing it on the way from the club, to give you the option to just turn around and leave, but-"

Raven's mind whirls at the sensations overtaking her.

Things begin coming into focus, the denial leading to her ignorance of her own and Jinx's actions both gone. And with its absence, a bright blush forms as her mind connects several things at once.

Her blush brightens when she ponders how she had gone almost a month reacting to Jinx's obvious flirts with her own, while never really considering things.

"Jinx, calm down. Take a brea-"

"I should've waited on this. I mean, it hasn't even been-"

" _Nicole_ ," Raven interrupts, the use of her first name shocking Jinx into silence, "calm down and just listen, okay?"

Jinx just nods, not liking her sudden vulnerability.

"My confusion is due to my assumption that I was heterosexual being brought into clear question. I mean, admittedly, I never really spent too much effort  _pondering_  on it, but it is still surprising."

A smile forms on her lips as she begins circling her thumb on the back of the meta's hand.

"My emotions are…  _volatile_ , and as you said, you unleash them from my careful control. The stress you were sensing was not over you kissing me, at least not directly. I have enjoyed our friendship immensely, but it  _has_ had consequences on my psyche that are not entirely positive."

Jinx's retort is cut off by Raven's warning glare, her blush and the buzz slowly working its way out of her system.

"You have to understand that I have made it a natural part of my mentality that my emotions are to be controlled, not expressed. The ease with which you change that is… frightening. You are correct that I have been sending you signals, but due to how I have handled myself from a young age, I have a fair bit of repression to deal with, and so it went mostly unacknowledged by myself."

"Okay, let me interrupt for a sec, okay, Rae?"

Raven tentatively nods, and Jinx squeezes her hand back.

"You know I like you, right?"

At her nod, she continues, "And you like me, right?"

Raven considers this, wondering on her slip of control. Even with her lack of attention, surface emotions were the only ones capable of wresting as much control as she had allowed throughout the evening.

With that thought, she gives a nod, frowning when Jinx simply stares inquisitively at her, obviously wanting something more satisfactory.

"I do," she replies quietly, Jinx's ears straining to hear her.

"Alright. Look, I get it, at least objectively. I liked Cy, and I had a huge crush on Kid Flash. I also have been pretty blatantly flirting with you since that night at the Angelique, and it's gotten a bit more serious over the last few weeks of us hanging out. I realized a bit back that I've gotten kinda' attached to you, Raven, if we're being honest here. Ergo, I figured out I'm bisexual. Really, it doesn't need to be complex. You can't exactly control who you like, even with someone with control issues such as yourself," she says with a shrug.

Raven's mind turns the statement over, looking for ways to argue the logic.

When she finds none, she gives an audible sigh before releasing her hand.

"That logic makes sense. So, I suppose I must first apologize for causing both of us undue stress after such an enjoyable evening."

Jinx returns to her previous position then, both of them shivering at the renewed contact.

"So, what's this mean? I mean, I ain't all for the labels and crap, so if whatever this is ain't a big deal-"

"I think we should work out details such as that later," Raven remarks.

"So, only one thing left to question, then," Jinx responds, smiling at the answering raised brow.

"And that is…?"

"You like me, I like you, we both enjoyed that kiss and want to put off defining things to do more of that… So what're we still doing talking?"

Smirking, Raven leans forward, her own hand sliding into the meta's thick locks.

"That's a very good question."

The empath initiates the next kiss, the second in many for the night...  
 ****************************

"Are you sure you have to go?" Jinx asks, batting her eyes at Raven.

The Titan begins straightening out her shirt before realizing it's the least obvious sign of the past hours.

Letting it go, she runs her hand through Jinx's hair, fascinated by the ripple that works its way through the woman's body in response.

"I would prefer to say no, but I cannot," Raven sighs.

"Didn't you say Nightwing gave you the night off?" Jinx whines, letting her head rest on the empath's shoulder.

"Yes, and I explained my continued absences to him, as well. But he believes the reason behind my absences has been resolved, which it has certainly not, much as I would like for it to be so."

At that, Jinx's mirth vanishes, remembering the brief pause in their play when something clearly bothersome had occurred to her.

She had clearly held back details on what had caused the confrontation with the witch in the first place, but it had not stopped her from giving her enough to get the gist.

She briefly ponders getting Gizmo to look into it, before realizing that doing so would go against Raven's wishes, and would start her down the same path she had avoided with Kid Flash.

"So, you really think that she's… what? Going to be stalking you? I mean, she said that you two should work together, right?"

Raven nods, a frown of thought forming. Not liking the sight of it, Jinx runs her hand up and down her back, smiling when her eyes close and her frown slips away with a contented sigh.

"I do not know. She did not lie when she said that… but something isn't right. I can't explain it, but I've learned to listen to my instincts. And my instincts are telling me to be even more wary of Zatanna than I was before we had it out."

"Would she be able to lie to your face?" Jinx ponders aloud. "I mean, you've got the whole empath thing going, but you told me you don't mess with your telepathy. She's got a number of years on you. Could she, I dunno,  _mask_  herself like you did, but a lot more literally?"

"I… don't know. The thought never occurred to me," Raven says as worry ripples through her. "I didn't sense anything beyond the usual magic that the woman exudes, but if she were to go so far as to hide her emotions with a spell, who knows  _what_ she could hide from me?"

Suddenly, Raven shakes her head and turns to Jinx, giving her another kiss.

She pulls away far too quickly for Jinx's liking, and begins to rise from the couch.

"At any rate, Nightwing will be paying attention now, and if I come up with another excuse for my absences, he will question the first reason and begin to suspect things."

"Yeah, 'bout that… You said the whole thing started over where your intel's coming from."

Raven's eyes widen, a bemused expression coloring her face.

"Surely you don't think-"

"Not a chance," Jinx interrupts dismissively. "But I wanna' know what you  _did_  tell him. C'mon, you can't blame me for being curious. You said you'd ensure they won't ask about it again. So…?"

Relaxing, Raven smiles again, this time a chuckle shaking her form.

"I told them that my intel is coming from various shadowy underworld types who are versed in the magical artifacts niche. I would find their ease of accepting I have such an information network of contacts disturbing, were I not so entertained by it."

"Seriously!? An' Nightwing didn't go all  _holier than thou_  on you?"

"He tried," the empath responds with a shrug. "I appealed to his logic. After all, can he really complain about where I'm finding the information to track the items down, so long as I don't aid in crimes myself and continue retrieving items?"

A thought occurs to Jinx, and Raven stares in confusion at her as she begins to shake with laughter.

"Okay, here's some food for thought. What d'you think'd piss 'im off more? The underground network of magic users or your girlfriend's merc group that had to do the League's job for them?"

Raven smiles at that, for more than one reason.

The way the meta instantly blushes nearly neon pink and sheepishly casts her gaze to the ground is definitely one of them.

"Girlfriend. I like the sound of that. And I think that Nightwing would likely be as unhappy about my association either way, especially were he to find out said group contains an ex-Titan."

"Guess that solves the whole labels thing. I like it, too," the meta adds, her relief obvious, before stealing another kiss. "Are you  _sure_  you have to go? I can make insubordination worth your while," she adds with a goofy wag of her eyebrows.

"Of which I have no doubt. But yes, unfortunately, I am sure. Zatanna has a disturbing control over him, and if she returns from Vegas before I'm present, she may make a point of asking if he knows what my plans for the evening were. And it would not take him too long to find the club, which would mean he would find you. And that would make a repeat of tonight much more difficult to arrange."

"You don't think-"

"Nothing indicates it. But if she can mask her emotions from me, as I said, who the hell knows what else she can do?"

"I mean, she'd have to be incredibly confident or  _really_  stupid to piss the Tamaranian off," Jinx adds.

"Well, at any rate, as of now I've no idea beyond speculation on what may have tripped my senses. If I start making assumptions, I may miss something obvious."

Sighing, Raven begins to fall into her portal, leaning forward and giving her girlfriend another kiss.

"I shall see you soon, Jinx."

Jinx simply nods, a content smile on her face as the Titan vanishes, materializing noiselessly in her own room the next second.

Feeling frantic energy coursing through her, she quickly changes into by far less attention-grabbing clothes and heads towards the kitchen.

She is surprised to find Starfire, Nightwing, and Cyborg all gathered at the table, food sitting before them.

"Yo, Rae, where- whoa, haven't seen  _that_  in a long time!" the half-machine shouts.

Only then does Raven notice the grin adorning her lips, finding that the trio's negative reactions to it are not nearly enough to wipe it away.

"I… had a good day," she states as she goes about preparing her tea.

The Titans look amongst themselves, the smile seeming entirely creepy on the woman. And yet, it's undoubtedly a good thing, especially given the mood she had been in during their meeting almost five hours ago.

They don't know what the cause for the rare good mood was for the psychic, but they knew better than to question or interfere with what was possibly a very temporary moment.

Cyborg's mechanical eye, though, doesn't miss the slight bruising on her lips, or the barely-there blush coloring her grey cheeks. He fights against his grin, deciding not to bring her down from her evening.

Kori, on the other hand, has no such understanding of subtlety.

"Do tell! What manner of enjoyment did you partake in, friend Raven?" Starfire asks, failing to notice the men's winces.

"I found some rather interesting books in an old shop. They were… most informative," she lies.

"What were they informative on?" the alien inquires further with a large grin.

"Fables, mostly. Old interactions between men and gods, that kind of thing. Quite interesting reads, when you have some history books to cross-reference them with," she says, her teammates not knowing said books belonged in her library for years.

With that, she finishes making her tea, floating towards the door with a large cup in hand.

Cyborg rises from his chair, his plates cleaned off.

"That was some good eats! I gotta' go get some more work done. No idea  _how_  my engine got so messed up. Have a good night, y'all!" he says in way of good-bye.

The half-machine finds Raven leaning against the wall down the hallway, her cup pressed to her lips while she raises a brow at him.

"You did not believe my statement," she says as he reaches her.

"You got lipstick on your neck," he comments, grinning as her hand flies up in search of the mark.

"Damn."

"Barely there. Wing and Star probably didn't notice it. Enhanced vision," he clarifies, tapping the metal on his skull. "So… who's the lucky girl?"

Raven notices the emotions coming from the man, his amusement making her good mood dwindle somewhat.

"You seem to have your own suspicions," she deadpans, pulling another sip from her tea.

"Maybe. Got my hands on one of the relics the other day. Just some low-time Intergang guy, got lucky and managed to swipe it when a guy dropped it running away from something. He said that he's thinkin' of just giving up, cause this is the second time someone stole his profit margin from 'im. Had a real… interesting… description of who got the first item, and said that one of his buyers thought they saw some punk chick on the roofs."

Raven pales at that, realizing that their confidence had been misplaced.

"And yet you didn't say anything to Nightwing about this supposed duo running around helping us with our job earlier," she remarks, unable to keep a slight tremor out of her voice.

Cyborg shrugs, leaning against the wall opposite her.

"Like you said, we can't be picky with methods on this. Things didn't make enough sense to bring it up while everyone was already lookin' keyed up for a fight between you two to break out."

"Well, I suppose if we ever run into this team, we'll have to thank them for their aid," Raven remarks nonchalantly. "Intergang isn't made up of the most stable individuals. Perhaps he was under the negative effects of magic and alien technology mixing poorly on his person?"

"Uh-huh. Well, it ain't like they're doin' somethin' we don't, so I guess the only real question is what they're doing with the mojo?"

"Were I to speculate on such things, I suspect that there are items that are sitting unnoticed to have returned to the museums. We have, after all, been focusing only on the stolen items, and not checking if other groups have anonymously aided us," Raven muses, her deadpan back in place.

"Well, I guess we'll just never know," Cyborg says with a shrug.

Grinning, he begins heading down the hallway, stopping at the turn.

"And Rae? I'm happy for you. Even if it isn't what I'm thinking it is, I'm glad you finally found someone to hang out with outside of the Titans. If anyone deserves to loosen up and enjoy life a bit, it'd be a pretty close fight between you and our unsleeping leader."

Raven smiles at this, the warmth in her expression momentarily startling the man.

"It would not… bother you?"

"You kiddin'? I'm just glad that whoever she is has lips, which means it ain't scaled," he laughs, almost doubling over at her blush.

"I was  _fifteen_. And he wasn't scaled in our initial encounters," she says, fighting against her blush.

"Either way, I think it's good for ya'," he laughs. "I'll look forward ta' meetin' her. You should give the team a warning, though, if you ever run into them," he continues. "If Nightwing or the League finds out that someone may or may not be moonlighting, they might think that the person isn't throwing everything they have as a mystic into the heist investigation. They'd be wrong, but it still wouldn't go over well."

Raven's smile grows at his concern.

"Thank you… I'm sure they could use the caution. Apparently they aren't very careful for a team wishing to stay anonymous… And Cy?"

"Yeah?" he asks, frowning at the tone in her voice.

"My new friend, who may or may not have good reason to not want me bringing her home to meet the family, so to speak… I and she would both theoretically appreciate it not reaching Nightwing or Zatanna."

"If you think she's got a good reason, I ain't gonna' say anything," he says, grinning as he heads down towards the garage and utterly missing the return of Raven's smile...  
 ****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I was a bit mixed while writing this one, so I'm really looking forward to what the readers think on this. Let me know your thoughts, good or bad. See you next time!


	15. Shift

#  XIV. Shift

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

_Warnings: Violence / Language_

_1 month later..._

"Hello?" Raven growls, her cell phone's ringing pulling her from her calm sleep.

"Hey, beautiful, are you free?" Jinx's voice sounds.

Raven sits up, frowning at her clock.

" _How did I forget to set my alarm?"_  she questions, running a hand through her mussed hair.

"Miss me already?" she asks with a smile.

"Yep. Which is totally unrelated, I promise. Giz got some intel. I would go at it on my own to give you a day to recover from the pure amazing that is me, but frankly, vampires scare the shit outta' me, an' I figured you wouldn't have the same problem."

Raven frowns in confusion then, trying to connect the statements and coming up short.

"Vampires… Gonna' have to clue me in, Jinx."

"Magical goblet supposedly belonging to that freaky Victorian chick that tried to get immortal from bloodbaths. I mean  _literal_  bloodbaths. Only so many types of people would want something belonging to her."

Raven's eyes widen as she makes the connection, slowly rising from her bed.

"Erzsebet Bathory's goblet," Raven clarifies. "Okay, that's kind of a dangerous one to have lying around. Give me an hour."

"Angelique?" Jinx asks, her smile making itself known in her voice.

"Sounds good to me. Hopefully they have my new order of tea in."

The cafe had become a common destination for their meetings while off-duty, and the two had become regulars to the father-son duo since their initial meeting there.

"We can only hope. Well, I'll see you in a bit. Ta-ta," the meta says in way of parting.

Smiling, Raven quickly goes through her morning routine before hunting down Nightwing.

" _Best to have him not wonder too much on where my time is spent. I can't afford to screw things up for Jinx_ ," she muses while floating silently through the halls.

She finally finds him, sitting in front of a monitor with Kori at his side.

"Any reports?" she asks in greeting.

"Yeah. Are you heading out solo again?"

"I have a lead to track down," she agrees. "Why?"

"Nothing. I'm just kind of disturbed at how good you are at being on your own. When this investigation's over, will being on a team again be difficult?"

"It's not that I'm good at it, necessarily, just that I have some very informed contacts," she argues with a shrug.

"I think I'd rather just not know, as long as you keep up the good work," he sighs. "Just be careful."

"What should I be watching out for?" she asks with a raised brow.

"Most of the criminals've been laying low for a while now, at least here in Jump. We got reports over the night that people have seen some of the Titans East around."

"Well, there's a name I hadn't heard in a while," the empath muses. "I'll definitely keep my eyes out. He'd definitely find it to be a good opportunity for some mayhem."

With that, she takes her leave, forming from a portal in the alley across from the cafe.

As the bell tinkles above her head, she finds Jinx already seated in their booth, a large jug of tea sitting on the table already.

"Good morning," she greets, taking her seat.

"Better now," the meta retorts, sliding a manilla envelope across the table to her. "Officially a month in… No regrets?"

Raven smiles at the nervousness coming from her girlfriend, brushing her foot along her leg beneath the table.

"Only that I didn't put more thought into a more sound excuse, so I wouldn't need to leave so early all the time. And that I wish I'd figured myself out sooner," she adds with a blush.

She quickly jots a note down on the ordering pad before Jinx walks it to the counter, Raven's attention going to the folder.

"So what's with the briefing?" she asks as her eyes move across the notes on the item.

"Giz finally agreed that you seeing the reports might help us out a lot. So this is the report he got from a tip to the D.M.A…. with the relevant names removed, obviously. Classified is classified."

"Wouldn't expect anything less. So, vampires, huh?"

"Hey, my blood belongs in me," Jinx justifies. "That shit freaks me out."

Smirking, Raven works her way through the report, a sense of foreboding taking form.

"So what do you think?" Jinx asks as she falls onto the cushion at the empath's side.

"Smooth," she deadpans.

Grinning, Jinx gives a shrug before leaning against her.

"I try."

"At any rate, I understand where your concern is coming from. Blood magic's never a good thing, and  _that_ woman could not have had any good use for such an item."

"But that's not what's bothering you," Jinx guesses, not missing her harsh frown.

"The report says that it was seen around Gotham."

"Any significance to that?"

"Maybe," she says without elaborating any further. "At any rate, I think we'd best eat, because from this report, there could be a lot of searching today, and that's just assuming that we  _don't_  get into a fight with someone of persistence and skill over it. We're going to need the nutrition."

As if on command, the waiter slides their plates to them, a smile on his face.

"Ladies. Is the tea to your satisfaction, Ms. Roth?"

"It is fantastic," Raven agrees with a smile. "Has business been good recently?"

"Matter of fact it has. Wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"

"I'm not the only one in this city who enjoys good tea and a comfortable place to drink it in. Word must be getting around," she says with a shrug, only Jinx spotting her smile hidden in her teacup.

"Uh-huh. Well, enjoy your meals," he says before walking off with a smile of his own.

"So spill, Rae, why might Gotham be a problem?" Jinx asks as soon as he's out of earshot.

"There are people in Gotham I would rather not get their hands on something with the goblet's power there. More than the usual. Dangerous people hide in that city's shadows," she intones mysteriously.

"Y'know, I kind of get how they might've believed you about the mystery network, when you say stuff like that," Jinx mutters, frowning at her girlfriend's cryptic words.

Raven simply shrugs, letting none of her worry show…  
 ****************************

"You weren't kiddin' about the searching," Jinx sighs, the pair walking silently out of an empty warehouse that, against the rumors, is one of the rare ones that actually  _is_ empty.

True to Raven's words, they have spent several hours on the streets around Gotham, which border on Jump's.

Rumors have gotten them nowhere, and the more they search, the more a cold certainty is taking hold in the empath's mind.

As they begin heading in another direction, something stabs at her senses, a familiar energy making itself known to her mind.

Without a word, she wraps her hand around Jinx's wrist and begins moving in the direction of the source, a sigh leaving her.

"What is it, girl?" Jinx asks in a falsetto, laughing when Raven blushes.

"Shut up," Raven sighs, glaring at her girlfriend.

The lack of heat in the words and stare both does nothing to remove the expression from the meta's face.

"Seriously, what is it? We went that way before."

"One of those individuals that I mentioned is here. Best place to start looking."

"Okay, see, this is where you should be telling me what we're walking towards," Jinx says with a frown.

Raven begins to respond when they turn a corner and find a pair of men walking ahead of them, seeming oblivious to the rest of the world in their deep discussion.

Jinx's eyes don't miss the glint of gold in one of their hands, her eyes narrowing.

Her eyes move to the other man, widening in recognition at the short, blond man.

"Is that Impulse? I thought Wally was working with the kid, last I'd heard. What-"

"Inertia," Raven corrects. "Long story, think of him like the anti-Impulse. He's one of Sla-  _Deathstroke_ 's peons."

She still couldn't believe the guts of the mercenary introducing himself by name to their team on their first encounter, and yet it had taken them until barely a year earlier to finally make the connections.

" _Richard's still angry about it, I'm sure_ ," she adds with an internal grin.

"Okay. So who's the other guy? I'm gonna' go out on a limb and guess speedy isn't why you're so-"

The man's face turns at something Inertia says, and his almost white hair catches the dwindling sun, looking entirely out of place on the apparent teenager's face.

Jinx's eyes widen as her comment cuts off, taking in the appearance of her formerly calm girlfriend.

Raven's eyes suddenly narrow to slits, an inexplicable sense of foreboding taking root in Jinx at the sight.

At the sight of the man, an inexplicable anger forms in the pit of Raven's mind, a growl sounding itself out within her. A red haze covers her mind, and with a more audible growl, she mentally sweeps it away, the fog vanishing even as her anger remains.

Memories come unbidden to the forefront of her mind, and she lets out another, even more audible, rumble as she forces the red tint to her sight away.

"Rae?"

"Allow me to apologize, in advance. You're going to likely see a very negative side of me in the next few moments."

Jinx gapes at her teammate as she stalks forward, the anger in her voice something formerly thought to not exist in the empath's emotional lexicon.

Wordlessly, Raven advances on the two, making no sounds and seeming to have no presence at all, even as the meta stares at her.

The whole street seems to become unnaturally dark, no clouds thick enough anywhere near their location, and a cold wind sweeps past them all.

"Slumming it, aren't you, Inertia?" she growls when she's in the villains' earshot.

Inertia jumps at the noise, the mystery man simply turning to face her with an amused smirk.

"Ah, you  _must_  be Raven," the man says, his voice carrying a strange accent.

"Brilliant deduction. I hope you weren't too disappointed with the  _gift_  your coronation afforded you. I put effort into it, you know."

The man's eyes narrow, anger flashing in his red orbs.

" _Red?_ " Jinx mentally gasps, not sure if her eyes are betraying her.

"You two know each other?" Inertia guesses, edging away from the two.

As he moves away, the air between the pair seems to shimmer, as if an unseen fire ignites in the middle of them.

Jinx ignores her growing sense of foreboding and steps up to Raven's side, ready to act when she calls for it.

"Only  _of_  each other," the man laughs, the sound sending an inexplicable wave of disgust through the meta.

"You're going to be handing that goblet over to me," Raven demands. " _Now_."

"This?" he asks, raising the gold cup up for her inspection. "And here I thought you decided to just come and enjoy my wit."

"I would think you'd rather not, given the  _hospitality_  I offered you previously," Raven bites out, a strange rumbling quality coming through her voice.

Jinx audibly gulps, a chill running through her.

" _What the hell!? Raven doesn't_ banter _, that's my thing."_

Her body tenses, her senses cast wide so she can react when the moment things get ugly inevitably comes.

"Inertia, could you do me a favor and occupy Ms. Roth's friend while we have a  _private_  discussion?" he calls behind him.

Jinx's eyes widen in shock at that, her face becoming pale at the casual use of the name. A brief sense of jealousy rears its ugly head before the look on Raven's face quashes it.

" _If looks could kill, there wouldn't even be buildings around here anymore. Who the hell_ is _this guy!?_ " she ponders in distress, wanting desperately to remove the expression from her girlfriend's face.

Inertia begins to move before a cage of Raven's soul-self forms, trapping him off the ground.

"Nothing to discuss. The terms are simple. If you want to walk away better off than  _they_  did, you'll hand me the goblet,  _now_."

"I think I'd rather just see what you can do. Oh, and I should warn you my mind isn't one to be easily picked through as theirs were," he adds, seemingly at random.

"An unnecessary warning. I wouldn't want your filth on my mind. And I imagine that that will change once you no longer have your skin coiling around what you call your soul and your mind lays bare for what awaits you," Raven growls, the sound unnaturally vibrating the ground.

"But you'd know all  _about_  souls, wouldn't you?" he taunts.

"Um… Raven? Who the  _hell_  is he?" Jinx finally demands, not liking the growing fear in herself.

"She hasn't told you about me? I'm hurt, Rachel," the man laughs.

The mirth vanishes when a wave of black rushes towards him, the man jumping unnaturally high to dodge the strike.

"So rumors of familial temperament are more than rumors, it seems," he laughs. "As for who  _I_ am? Why, I am none other than Ms. Roth's betrothed."

Raven's eyes widen at that, before the fog returns. She vaguely feels a burning sensation in her forehead, but pays no attention as the gem in her forehead gains an unearthly, black glow.

The air becomes utterly still, and she meets the man's eyes, not realizing the red flecks that have begun to form in them.

" _I should have sent someone else the second I knew I was right_ ," she curses, fighting to wrest control from her anger.

The fight is a slow one, and her body moves of its own accord as she slowly regains her self-control back.

Jinx's heart skips a beat at the words, a cold fear gripping her mind in a vice.

As she stands frozen and analyzes the feeling, though, she finds it to not originate from his accusation, or the disbelief they cause.

What causes her reaction is the sudden shadows which fill the street with no discernible source, seeming to focus on obscuring Raven from view.

"Is that the trick you used to send my men back to me in emotional comas?" the man inquires, seeming almost bored with the display. "I was expecting something more impressive. The way our telepath told it, she made it sound like you had personally dipped their minds in Hell before sending them on their way. Oh, by the way, how  _is_ daddy doing, Rachel? I hear the man's come down with a sudden case of patricide."

The cement beneath the empath's floating form cracks in a massive spider web pattern, the noise like an explosion going off in the silent street.

" _ **My name is**_ **Raven** ," the empath intones, her voice echoing off the buildings.

At the sound of her voice, Jinx stumbles back a step, her instincts screaming at her to turn and run while giving no further explanation. Her legs, however, remain rooted to the spot, her only cold comfort being that Inertia looks far more scared than she.

Only the mystery man remains unfazed, a toothy grin revealing unnaturally long and sharp incisors.

"Cool trick. I imagine that you're quite the pleasure to bed, if you growl like this regularly. Care to prove me wrong?"

A grunt sounds from Raven, and her slight levitation ends, her feet audibly hitting the ground. Her hand flies to her forehead, and a burst of black light sets off in front of her crouched body.

When the blindness fades, Raven stands tall once more, her eyes perfectly indigo once more.

"Apologies. It seems you invoked some very unfortunate triggers I habitually avoid."

Jinx's fear vanishes along with the sensation rising in waves from her girlfriend, her feet quickly carrying her back to the woman's side. She does not miss the quivering undertone to the woman's words.

"You must be quite a special teammate," he laughs, addressing Jinx. "I'm betting were you not here, I could have some real trouble on my hands, there."

When she lays her hand flat on Raven's back, she notices a definitive tremble to her body.

And yet, her touch seems to quickly calm the psychic, if even only a small amount, and a small sigh escapes from Raven's pursed lips.

"Raven, who in the hell-"

"I believe you knew my father, Ms. Diaz," he interrupts. "We both are men who-"

"Have delusions of grandeur, which are a trait of  _his_  family," Raven interrupts. "He's Brother Sebastian Blood IX."

Jinx pales at that, stepping closer to Raven's side.

"Oh, don't worry, I do not have the mental abilities my father used on your classmates and yourself in the H.I.V.E. Academy. And Rachel… sorry,  _Raven_ , if you want the goblet, all you have to do is take it from me, something you seem assured is of so little consequence you don't even want to waste the energy on it."

Inertia falls to the ground as Raven's energy retracts, her eyes suddenly glowing with sparks of black light.

"You can't say I didn't attempt a peaceable resolution, Sebastian. Jinx, a hand if you would?"

Her Cheshire smile finally makes its return, the meta's eyes glowing bright pink.

"From what I've picked up about you guys, if you're the new Brother, the old man's dead. That means the beating I owe him for fucking with my mind falls at  _your_ feet. I think I'm going to enjoy this."

"Much as I'd love both your lovely attentions, my bed's only big enough for two. Inertia, if you would?"

The speedster nods and vanishes from where he stands, rushing at Jinx with a fist aimed at her throat.

Still grinning, Jinx goes into a series of backflips, avoiding each of his strikes with a narrow margin.

His attention is so focused on hitting the feline woman that he notices none of the small bursts of pink light that forms between the ground and her palms with each of her handsprings.

When the ground cracks beneath him and his leg buries itself into a broken chunk of concrete, though, he takes notice as the meta moves back to Raven's side.

The women join their hands together, both pointing their index finger out.

A bolt of pink energy launches from them, sending off dark black sparks as it heads for Sebastian.

With a curse, he dives to the side, the ground exploding in a rain of rocks and dust where he had stood.

Sebastian's eyes glow red, and he snarls at them, revealing his fangs fully to the pair.

"A  _vampire_!?  _Seriously?_ " Jinx bemoans.

Shrugging, Raven sends her soul-self out to swipe at the man, slapping him from the air with another attack as he rises.

He smacks into the side of a car, glass and metal crunching under the impact.

Raven begins advancing on him when a blur catches her eye.

She ducks just in time to dodge Inertia's punch, his body seeming to vanish as he chases after her in a barrage of attacks.

Something familiar makes itself known from the man, and Raven's eyes widen.

"Oh. That makes sense."

On his next attack, Raven clamps down on his wrist, her eyes glowing black.

" **Expergefacio** _!"_  she intones, planting her other hand on his forehead.

Small columns of white light leave Raven's gaping mouth and open eyes, Inertia's whole body turning the color.

It quickly fades, and the speedster quickly drops unconscious to the ground.

"That's not fair!" Sebastian snarls. "Do you know how hard it was to work through whatever the hell Deathstroke has him addicted to!?"

"My heart breaks for you," Raven says as her soul-self carries the boy to a safe spot. "Can't say I'm surprised you'd lie about having your father's abilities. I'd certainly never want to associate with the man."

Exhaustion shows on the vampire's face, his expression one of worry for the first time.

"Well, your mind's out of my league, but I wonder about your friend. Think Ms. Diaz could hold up to par?"

Jinx gasps at that, looking at the unconscious speedster and unconsciously moving closer to her girlfriend.

"I have no doubt Jinx would stand against you just fine," Raven laughs.

Jinx's eyes widen at that.

She doesn't know where Raven got that much confidence in her abilities, but memories of Sebastian's father easily slipping past her defenses when she was younger leave an acrid taste in her mouth.

"Uh, Rae-"

"All the same, should you attempt to test it, I'm sure you understand the…  _consequences_  that could be reaped."

" _Ha_! Like you could really stand against me. You really shouldn't play with those connected to your existence. I learned much before my father left his mortal shell, and there are rather  _interesting_ ways of dealing with you. As you are now, I likely can't do as much, but oh, how I wonder at what would happen if you crossed that threshold."

Raven takes a step back as if punched in the face, shock registering on her expression.

Jinx stares at the woman with her own shock, fear rearing its ugly head again as she wonders over what could scare  _Raven_.

In their distraction, the women fail to notice him slowly edging to the side of the road.

By the time Raven's mind clears enough to recognize it, he's already mid-way through his spin, a foot lashing out at the fire hydrant.

She immediately begins rushing through the air at him as the water springs high.

With a grin, he swings the goblet through the spray in an arc that brings it to his lips, the now red liquid within drizzling into his system and down to his chin.

His exhaustion vanishes without a trace, his entire body seeming to grow muscles where a wiry frame had been.

Raven attempts to stop her course, her momentum carrying her the small distance to him.

With a grin, Sebastian steps to the side. His hand shoots out as she passes him, the sudden pull on her hair ripping her head up while her body carries forward.

Her body jerks to a stop, Raven's eyes widening in pain as her neck muscles visibly strain.

Grinning ear to ear, Sebastian raises his arm and swipes it downward, Raven's body shattering the ground in the impact.

"Raven!"

The empath recovers quickly, spitting blood onto the concrete as she rises to her knees.

"Azarath Met-"

Sebastian jerks her back, hand going around her already bruised throat as she falls off balance.

"Uh-uh. Too late,  _Raven_."

With a hiss of her own, Jinx runs forward, a bolt of pink flying at the man.

It collides with a neon explosion, and his hand releases Raven's hair as he flies backwards, many purple strands going with him.

Raven immediately takes flight, backing away from the vampire.

"Are you okay?" Jinx asks as soon as she reaches her, her tone full of concern.

"I'll be fine," the empath wheezes, wondering at the pain in her ribs' general location.

"I'd love the debrief right 'bout now," Jinx states as the vampire rises to his feet.

" _Ouch_ ," he unconvincingly says, dusting himself off.

"The water turned to blood. With blood, he goes from gawky little brat to supervampire, essentially. Damnit, I should've called in help before!"

"Probably right. And we are  _so_  talking about this when you're not looking ready to keel over. So what all can he do?"

Wincing, Raven straightens up.

"Rumors only, unfortunately. First time getting the  _pleasure_  of meeting 'im. Looks like the superhuman strength wasn't wrong, though."

With a laugh, Sebastian rushes forward, the street seeming to vibrate beneath his steps.

They move to get out of his way just as he reaches them, his fist whipping out into Raven's stomach.

With a gasp, she doubles over, bringing her head in alignment with his approaching knee.

She rises into the air, blood quickly flowing from her smashed nose.

With her tears obscuring her vision, she misses his reaching hand.

He presses on her forehead, slamming her down into the cement skull-first.

"You really  _should_  keep up with your combat skills, dear," he laughs with false sympathy. "Your magic doesn't do you a lot of good if you're gasping too much to say anything."

Anger begins taking over Raven's mind, this time becoming embraced by her.

A sudden surge of power flows through her, and with a hiss, she swings her legs up.

Standing overtop of her, he doesn't react fast enough to the attack.

A loud  _crack_  sounds as her feet meet his knees, and as he falls forward, she wraps her legs around his chest.

With a grunt, she pushes off the ground, going into a roll with him and coming to a stop straddling him.

Her fist lashes out, black energy sparking out as she connects.

His head whips viciously to the side, his lower jaw bent at an angle.

As he reaches for her, she jumps away, landing quietly next to Jinx.

"Rae-"

"I'm really wishing that booze works on me right about now," Raven gasps, finding her nose already in the process of fixing itself.

Her hand goes to the back of her head, coming away a startling shade of red.

With a laugh, Sebastian stands up sporting not a scratch, only the blood covering his chin and neck indicating the previous damage.

"And the invulnerability and regeneration are correct, as well. Okay… Jinx, I apologize. Your sentiments on vampires are not as misplaced as I had assumed."

"Damn right! So what  _can_ hurt him?"

Raven stares at the approaching vampire, a war battling itself out in her head.

" _You can't afford caution with this one. Your confidence has already done damage that would render most metahumans unconscious. Doesn't much matter if you're still you if you're dead_ ," a dark voice growls in her mind.

Her expression darkens, and sparks of black begin rising from her like a second skin.

"Jinx, step back a bit."

"… Why?"

"I don't want to end up accidentally hurting you. Holding back is a luxury that we can't afford just now."

Jinx's eyes widen, her body immediately flipping backward to separate them. The idea of all Raven's power being a sliver was enough to both terrify and amaze the meta.

Raven's eyes close, and a frown of concentration forms.

Slowly, her leash on Rage's influence slackens, her body immediately flooding with the power her demonic side affords her.

When her eyes open, they sport brilliant, glowing red speckling, the expression causing the vampire's advance to falter.

"Azarath-"

Snarling, Sebastian begins running at her, pushing his influence past her spell into Inertia's unconscious and vulnerable mind.

" _Metrion_ -"

Inertia rises with glazed over eyes, immediately rushing at the sorceress's back. Sebastian leaps forward, swinging his fist at her throat in the hopes of crushing her trachea.

" _ **Zinthos**_!"

With the cry rises a bubble of black flames, slamming in a concussive wall into her assailants.

A scream sounds as the flames work their way into Sebastian...  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Erzsebet Bathory is the actual spelling of the name of Elizabeth Bathory, a countess who did exactly what I wrote, in the theory it would give her eternal youth. She's 1/2 of what Bram Stoker based Count Dracula on.

This is not the Titans East run by Bumble Bee. In this instance, I'm using the anti-Titans group that Deathstroke (Slade "Slade" Wilson in the comics) makes in the comics. Inertia is the speedster on their team, a clone of Bart Allen, who in the context of this story would be Wally West's apprentice, gaining powers from a drug that Deathstroke seems really fond of using on his minions and/or powerful steroids. Think I may be making this more complex than strictly necessary.

Expergefacio- Latin for "awaken"

Also, I'm pretty sure that Sebastian Blood's hands-down one of the creepiest characters in the Teen Titans series, if not the DC comics universe as a whole. Hope that came through well enough.

Hope you're enjoying thus far! I really enjoy writing supernatural fights, and I hope it comes through. Either way, let me know your thoughts. 'Til next time!


	16. Bloodlust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven lets loose on Brother Blood, and has to deal with the consequences.

#  XV. Bloodlust

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

_Warning: Lots of violence / Abbreviated lemon at the end_

Sebastian and Inertia slam into the ground, unnatural black flames slowly dissipating from their limp forms.

Unconscious to start, Inertia lays utterly still, blood caking his face and an ugly burn covering one of his legs through his green jumpsuit.

Sebastian, on the other hand, forces himself to roll on his back with a grunt.

The flames having left her energy inside of him, his body refuses to knit its many burnt patches and tears back together. His blood slowly begins coalescing in the cracked cement beneath him.

With a flourish, he is quick to put himself back on his feet, eyes glowing the dark red of old blood.

"That was not bad," he says before spitting blood to the ground.

"I'm  _so_ glad you decided to get back up," Raven muses, her eyes glowing in her eagerness.

He pauses at that, his smirk faltering somewhat.

"Didn't think you took so much of your familial tendencies to heart, Rachel," he laughs.

Her eyes gain a hellish, red glow to them, and her own lips curve into a sneer.

"You wouldn't dare to see what I can be if I really aligned myself that way."

She walks towards him, her soul-self rising in black smoke around her fists.

"The reason I'm pleased with your persistence,  _Sebastian_ , is that you pointed something out about my skills. I really  _should_  keep up with my short range skills. And who better to have as a sparring partner than a vampire who, _theoretically_ , will keep coming back for more?"

He pales at that, her darkening eyes sending a chill through him.

Just as he begins debating charging or retreating as his best option, she moves.

In a flash, her body is in front of his, and she whips her right fist forward.

As the momentum collides with his jaw, her soul-self snaps out to follow the path.

Even as he begins moving backward from her fist's impact, the power slams down, and he grunts as several teeth are knocked completely free.

As he begins heading for the ground, she steps forward and sends a kick into his ribs, in the exact spot he'd hurt her.

More of her psychic power formed between her limb and the vampire's body.

This time, it explodes in a cloud of black sparks and ugly, acrid smoke on the top of her foot.

His pain is more audibly marked this time, his body going limp on the ground as pain wracks his chest.

Jinx watches on, both impressed and terrified of the display at the same time.

"That's not very  _fair,_ _ **hero**_ ," he coughs. "Killing and maiming is  _our_  deal!"

"You talk still, so I clearly haven't crossed lines," Raven reasons, her voice coming out in a hiss.

"Villain or not, isn't your team of vigilantes always under close watch? Wonder what'll happen when someone in these buildings sees you calling down those oh, so dangerous powers of yours."

His grin cannot hide his pain, but he smirks nonetheless.

Raven stares with her glowing eyes straight ahead, making him think he has gained an upper hand over the demonling.

"You know nothing of my  _powers_ , vampire," she states just as he begins rising.

Snorting, he begins hobbling away, not seeing the grin that carves its way onto her face.

"You should know from father dearest what kind of skill we have at smear jobs. Consider yourself lucky I'm tactically retreating until I figure out just why in the 7th circle I'm not healing."

Raven silently moves towards the retreating figure, a pain in her skull going unnoticed as she approaches like wrath incarnate.

Jinx, however, has no such distraction.

Which is why, when her girlfriend's eyes suddenly become pure, blood-red, and a second pair rips its way into existence above them, she begins duly panicking.

The shadows on the street become alive as Raven's cloak flows in an unfelt wind, billowing around her and seeming to grow.

Dark tendrils begin slithering along the ground around her, seeming to originate in the cloak itself.

With vicious speed, the tendrils lash out and slam into Sebastian's ankle, sending him sprawling to the ground with a moan of pain.

Jinx's stomach turns at the sight of the odd angle of his ankle as he lands, terror wrapping around her brain in a primal warning.

Raven reaches the fallen vampire, her grin becoming even larger.

"You're correct, Brother Blood, I most certainly should  _not_  be doing what I'm doing. Attacking a weakened opponent while his back is turned is the least of my PR nightmares… But do you want to know a little secret?" she asks, stooping down near his head and forcing their eyes to lock.

Her eyes glow menacingly in the shadows her hood casts, her body darkened to the point of seeming like an abyss unto itself.

Images of his body being devoured flitter through the vampire's mind, and he begins gasping as panic speeds his heart up.

"Dr. Light taught me a lesson over the years. If I don't make you criminals understand the consequences of your actions, more than a posh little cell with fellows also dedicated to being nuisances, you will simply return to harm innocents."

A twinge of warning runs through Raven's mind, going ignored in the red haze covering her.

"With the Titans, or most hero organizations, such actions are rather important. But for me, this little outing has informed me of something."

"Wh-What?" he gasps, morbid curiosity talking for him.

"There is a limit to my tolerance for allowing repeat injuries," she replies, her voice beginning to get deeper with every word. " _ **If we had not shown up, what would you have done with your mind-puppet? Robbed a bank? Gone on a killing spree? Attempted to use the goblet in some ritual to repeat the past mistakes of your cult? This is a limit I will happily break, to stop you from hurting innocents more.**_ "

At this, Sebastian's body vibrates with laughter, spit hitting her face as he does.

"We hurt no  _innocents_! We hurt  _you_ , and you, Ms. Hellion, are certainly no one's idea of  _innocent_! Your origins make you worse by nature than I could ever be!" he laughs.

Raven's eyes flare with power, and his amusement vanishes when a shadowy tendril wraps tightly around the middle of his undamaged leg, squeezing hard.

With a  _snap_ , his femur gives, a scream echoing in the air as he desperately rolls around, clutching at the damage.

The sound reaches through the fog of her rage and pulls something free.

Her consciousness returning, Raven tastes the emotions on the air. The absolute terror from the cultist doesn't bother her all that much.

The fear, worry, and growing anger coming from Jinx, however, is a painful cocktail which snaps her mind back into focus.

The red haze around her vision vanishes in a blink, and she falls to her feet on the ground.

The tentacles vanish in wisps of oily smoke, and her eyes return to their normal color.

" _We will have words about what relaxed control means and does not mean, Rage. After I clean up your mess,"_  she mentally swears, hearing a growl in response.

Her hands gain a blue glow, and she points at the vampire, watching as his broken legs slowly right themselves.

"I think I've established now how greatly your arrogance was misplaced, Sebastian."

He flinches at her words, and she decides to use her immense screw-up for at least  _some_ benefit.

"You're going to answer me, now. Where did you get your hands on the goblet?"

Something in his expression hardens as he stares up at her, his mouth opening to answer.

Something shifts in the air, and Raven's eyes snap up as the blur of Inertia makes itself known.

He reaches her with his fist raised out, almost snapping her neck as he hits her.

Grunting, Raven dances away from his continued attacks, her freshly healed wounds screaming at her.

The speedster gives her no time to counter him, never more than a second between each of his strikes and the target constantly changing.

Jinx violently shakes her head, forcing herself out of her stupor.

" _We are having words,"_ she mentally snarls. " _The fuck'd I get myself into here?"_

Seeing the goblet gleaming in the distance, flung away from the vampire in the struggle.

Pushing into action, she rushes past him and dives for the goblet, coming out of her roll with the object white-knuckled in her hand.

"Raven! Extraction,  _now_!" she screams.

A bubble of soul-self forms around the empath, and Inertia is thrown far through the air when it violently expands.

In the next second, Raven's arm is around the meta and another bubble is surrounding them.

A moment later, the two fall gasping onto the floor of Jinx's apartment.

Slowly, Jinx sits up, glaring at the goblet in her hand before throwing it away in irritation.

"Well that didn't quite go to plan."

Under other circumstances, Raven would have laughed at the purposeful understatement.

At the moment, though, her possible soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend has no humor in her expression, eyes narrowed on the demonling.

"'Kay, couple little things I need to ask. You understand, I'm sure. Let's start with the easy stuff-"

"Jinx-"

"How about the whole  _torturer from the Circles_  bit. Care to share?"

Raven winces, slowly sitting up while pressing her hand to her forehead.

"Look, it ain't like I've got a moral high ground here, with the shit I saw with the Squad, or even what I've personally done since joining the D.M.A., but you scared the shit out of me out there. We've known each other for almost seven damn years. More than three months of that getting to know each other well, I'd like to think, and even fighting together. Not  _once_  have I seen you lose your shit like that," she states, her tone gradually becoming softer.

"Scared you, huh?" the psychic responds with a bitter laugh. "Something would be very wrong with you if you  _weren't_  scared. I'd like to say that it was all for the purpose of getting information from him, but I'm not that good a liar and you deserve  _far_  more credit than that…"

"So what in the hell?" Jinx responds, shocked at the sight of tears glimmering in the woman's eyes.

Raven takes a deep breath, meeting Jinx's gaze with determination.

"There are things about me, which will need to be aired if we continue. Partners, friends, girlfriends, lovers, it  _will_  eventually be a long discussion… But there is a right way of going about it, and in the heat of something like that is not the right time."

Jinx's eyes narrow, and Raven leans forward, grabbing her shoulders, only vaguely aware of the tremors working their way through her grasp.

"I'm not trying to avoid things. To properly explain what all of…  _that_ … was, I need to better grasp it myself. I have not lost control like that in a  _very_  long time… I would tell you I have no intention of letting such a slip-up happen ever again, but such a promise could not possibly be something I could make. I... I understand if this is enough to frighten you off," she adds, refusing to meet her eyes.

Jinx stares at the woman, the idea of suddenly cutting contact with her causing an inexplicable pain to shoot through her.

"Rae… Just talk to me. You don't need to explain everything until you're ready," she quickly adds to the woman's terrified expression, "but I need something. Out there… that was  _not_  the sweet and funny Raven that I asked out. I need to know if something's going wrong… Is it the artifacts in Nevermore?"

"It is, undoubtedly, in part due to them," Raven sighs.

She takes a hold of Jinx's hand, the meta shocked at the tremors running through her appendage.

"As I said, there are things about me you don't know. The items have made those things more volatile, and because of them, I lost control in the face of one of the few people in existence I can say I actually hate. Another aspect, surely, is that your line of work, which I've become more accustomed to working under since we began working together, affords more freedom in dealing with people like Sebastian."

Jinx tightens her hold on Raven's hand, making the psychic meet her gaze.

"If you'd just said you prefer the limitations set on how I can handle people over how you can as a Titan, I would've at least been prepared. But it came out of nowhere. One minute, we're just looking around, and the next, you go full sociopath on two guys who were just walkin' down the street. Sure, we knew they had the goblet, but that's a long way from suddenly throwing down with 'em. I mean, I get that you two know each other and do  _not_  get along, but that's a far way away from what you were almost doing."

Raven's internal battle is obvious, Jinx soothingly rubbing circles in the tops of her hands as she thinks.

" _She isn't running screaming, or reviling me. Her handling of this is_ far _better than others would be. She_ deserves _answers,"_ Raven muses, the image of a stone table taking up her mind.

" _She's earned your trust,"_  one of the figures pictured at the table adds. " _If that had been one of the Titans with you, or any of the League members of repute, we would be unconscious or dead right now."_

 _"The woman is willing to accept you enough to give you a fair chance to justify Rage's actions,"_ yet another of the figures adds.

Nodding, Raven comes awake from her pseudo-trance, meeting Jinx's eyes unflinchingly.

"There is a reason I keep such close monitoring on the Church of Blood," she starts.

"Okay, that's a good place to start. Where the hell'd he get the idea you're married?"

"A few days into his role as the new Brother Blood, he got the idea into his head that my power would be useful to their goals. A prophecy apparently says I would become his wife and Armageddon would be a direct result. He believes that he can…  _sire_  a power great enough to affirm the Church's beliefs on the whole of the Earth. Whether I would ever agree to it or not."

Jinx pales at that, a lot of Raven's reaction making much more sense suddenly.

" _Yeah, that's a pretty good reason to lose your shit."_

"Holy shit. Okay… um… am I terrible for being glad I only met the creepy puppeteer old man, way past his urges? Wait, didn't you say you hadn't met before?"

"He sent some Church members to abduct me one night. I was shot with a tranquilizer. As you understand, such things don't work on me, but there was  _something_  mixed in that made it work. I still don't know what it was, but it worked, at least temporarily."

"They could've killed you mixing shit in," Jinx gasps.

"Either is a victorious conclusion for them. Not helping their cause is actively going against it, and all that, barring the fact that I  _am_ actively against them. Several men grabbed me up and gagged me while I was hazy. They had, unfortunately, used plastic zip strips to bind me. Strong on their own right, but against my power, barely a second's distraction."

"So the, uh…  _coronation_  present you mentioned...?"

"I freed myself and cast an illusion on them. They gave up all the information of his ambitions I just mentioned, but unfortunately their minds did not handle the strain. I decided to anonymously send them to Gotham, where they have a central base, as a message on what I thought of his plans."

"Okay, yeah, your reaction was pretty understandable," Jinx agrees.

"I should not have lost control as I did… though I will admit, even with the force driving it gone, I do not disparage against the freedoms of dealing with criminals your line of work affords you. I think at the very least, he'll be reconsidering doing business in a sizable range from my territory now."

Jinx smiles at that, the tension slowly fading from the women.

Accepting a promise for an explanation, and feeling as though she may not want the answers anyway, she decides that they both need relaxation.

"Think Giz'll be pissed when he finds out that nothing mentioned that guy… Inertia?"

"Blood had him under his psychokinesis. He may have just been committing petty theft or running an errand and had the misfortune of running into him."

"Something I don't wish on anyone," Jinx muses, dark memories rising unbidden to her gaze.

Seeing it, Raven pulls her into her arms, the meta pressing her head into her shoulder.

"Even with my screw up, there is  _one_  thing positive to come out of it all," Raven muses.

"Oh? What's that? We've confirmed that we need to work on communication only a month into dating?"

"Good to know those things quickly," Raven agrees. "But no."

Grinning, she points at the cup, looking very out of place on the worn carpeting.

"We just managed to keep the Church of Blood from getting another magic artifact."

At that, Jinx laughs, the bad mood vanishing under at least a temporary blanket of elation.

Unspent adrenaline rushes through the women, and before they're aware they find themselves on Jinx's bed, lips seeming welded together.

Gasps fill the air as the two press together, Raven's eyes slamming closed as Jinx pulls away only to suck hard on her neck, directly on the pulse point.

The adrenaline slowly begins working its way out of them, their kisses slowing and becoming deeper.

Raven doesn't realize her hand has moved until Jinx arcs into her palm with a gasp.

Looking down, her face turns red at finding her hand pressed firmly into the woman's breast.

Sensing her hesitation, Jinx gently grabs the back of her neck and tilts her head, pressing another kiss to her that drains them of air.

"If you're worried about something happening, we can stop," she offers, shocking Raven.

"It's not  _me_  who should be worried, Jinx. Although what fueled my actions before and now are separate… I will not hold it against you if you would prefer a situation that's less… terrifying… to do this."

"You kiddin'? We both need to unwind, and I think this would be a pretty good way to do that. I ain't exactly the  _take things slow_  type, y'know? Still, though, I gotta' ask. If you were angry while doing that, does that mean I have to get you angry to hear you growl for me? 'Cause I kinda' can't get the thought outta' my head now," Jinx purrs, gently licking the shell of her ear.

"I'm going to make talking unnecessary now, before I question your sanity," Raven remarks.

Before Jinx's witty remark forms, the psychic grabs her and rolls, putting herself on top of the meta.

Her lips crash down hard on the woman's as her hand begins gradually brushing the hem of her shirt upward.

It doesn't take long before the two dissolve into liquid pleasure, their minds quickly forgetting the horrors of the day in favor of much more enjoyable memories made…

**************************

_Author's Notes_ :

Have I mentioned Sebastian is creepy? Because I'll reiterate. That story Raven tells? That's a thing he does in the comics, if it went the other way and they  _don't_  manage to kidnap her.

So, am I being too OOC with the characters? I'm basically taking a lot of traits from the various Raven incarnations over the years and trying to make them work in the context of the cartoon's universe. Don't know how well it's working. But you do. You, yes you, and you can feel free to inform me of how well it's working, the characters and story thus far both, which would be greatly appreciated.

 See you next time!


	17. Deception

#  XVI. Deception

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven's awareness expands slowly, her eyes reluctant to open.

A soft exhale of breath brings the warmth wrapped around her to attention, and she looks down, a smile spreading at the girl holding her.

"Bout damn time," Jinx sighs, running her palm in a soothing circle on her girlfriend's abdomen.

Raven merely nods her agreement, an unexpected aftershock sending more pleasurable ripples through her.

As her head falls to the side, the clock next to Jinx's bed makes itself known.

Shock runs through her, her trepidation not nearly as strong as it should be.

"I think I need to leave shortly," she states, her smile perpetually curving her lips.

"Really? It's only been- Holy shit," the meta laughs, noticing the time herself.

"Indeed. It seems you are better than you give yourself credit," Raven sighs as she sits up.

Laughing, Jinx places another kiss on her neck, rising with her girlfriend.

"You ain't so bad yourself. I do so  _love_  quick learners."

"Not quick enough, evidently. Nightwing will have expected my return two hours ago."

The psychic's good mood begins slowly dwindling, and with a huff, she forces herself to leave Jinx's side.

"I fear we're going to have to ruin this very lovely mood, for now. Before I part, can I assume that was the way of saying we're going to be okay?"

Jinx's smile sours somewhat, but it quickly fades as she wraps her arm around Raven's stomach from behind.

"Long as you explain things, I can wait until your ready.  _Reasonably_ , of course," she adds with a gentle squeeze. "And if you're talking in the general sense, you've no idea just how  _okay_  I am."

Blushing, Raven turns her head and gives her another kiss, a grin on both their faces as they pull away.

"Then I shall see you shortly. I need to make an appearance, and give a report, before we get the others and that goblet ready for their return."

"I'll just have to find something to occupy myself," Jinx sighs with a nod.

Grinning, Raven redresses and pulls the goblet through her portal into Nevermore, her yellow avatar catching it with one hand and not even glancing up from her book as she does.

" _Keep an eye on Rage_ ," she mentally intones, not trusting the items to be safe in her mind anymore, nor the influence they seem to have on her control.

"Well, then, I'm off. Dear Azar, I hope my mind can stay away from the past several hours while Richard is interrogating me."

Jinx's smirk fades as her girlfriend is swallowed up by her portal.

" _I'm hoping she's ready soon, cause Giz'd have a fit if he ever found out she went postal on an op,"_  she thinks with a grimace…  
 ****************************

Raven heads into her shower as soon as she materializes within the Tower, hurriedly working Jinx's scent and their mingled sweat off her.

" _Can't think Beast Boy would overlook that_ ," she muses with a powerful blush.

In short time, she appears in the common room, taking a seat across from Nightwing, who seems to have not moved since she had departed nearly half a day ago.

"You didn't happen to be in Gotham on your lead, right?" Nightwing asks, his tone sending a shiver through the psychic.

"I was. My search got… derailed, somewhat. I decided to report before I head back out to follow up," she states, giving him nothing in her tone.

"And you wouldn't know anything about why a whole city block suddenly fell asleep for the same exact half hour there, would you? Batman can't make heads or tails of such an event."

"My search got distracted by the appearance of Inertia and Sebastian Blood IX. There was a fight, and I admit that I may have loosed more of my power than usual. I didn't realize it would do that, though."

Nightwing's eyes narrow dangerously, his mask contouring to mirror the expression.

"I don't remember any calls for back-up coming in about one of the Titans East showing up. I  _do_  vaguely remember telling you to keep your eyes out for them, though."

"I handled them just fine, Richard," she defensively growls. "And Blood has one of the items. Or he did when he vanished. I was unable to match Inertia's speed, and as Kid Flash is out of country and Flash has better things to do, I did not call for aid. The result would have been the same."

"Alright, fine, I'll believe you if you tell me you made a command decision in-field. But it's your screw-up to clean up if they hurt people because they managed to get away."

Raven's eyes form a glare of their own, barely more than narrow slits.

"As I said, I'm reporting to keep you updated before I head back out to look for them, because I knew you would want a de-brief in person. And you really should focus on another aspect of it," she says, deciding that she does not want the emotions from the man focused on her.

"What?"

"Sebastian Blood. Inertia. Working together," Raven reiterates.

As expected, Nightwing's eyes widen as his mind instantly goes to work.

"So the Church, or Deathstroke, can be behind this," he growls.

"Or at the least have some hand in it," she adds, hiding her smile at how easily his thoughts have gone where she wanted them to.

"Alright, good work, then. You got us a lead. If the damage reports are accurate, then you'll have sent them to ground while they look into somewhere to heal. I don't agree with how you did it all, but I'll say that you got us results, again."

Nodding, Raven stands back up, heading for her room.

"And Raven?"

A warning goes off in the psychic's mind, and she slowly turns towards him with her stoic mask in place, a feat she finds more and more difficult the more she associates with the hex caster.

"If you're planning on going solo from the Titans, I at least expect a notification."

Raven's eyebrow raises, revealing none of her startled guilt to the masked man.

"I don't see how you came to that concern. I've already said that I'm only investigating on my own because I will get better results from my contacts without you and the others around to scare them off."

She feels his eyes locked on her, seeming to read into her soul itself.

"And fighting Brother Blood alone, with your powers that you keep wrapped in your mind unleashed, in broad daylight in Gotham, which I'm sure was an entirely objective choice of action. And there's the matter of your absence from the Tower while occasionally off-duty, which even Beast Boy noticed."

Raven turns back to him, letting out an irritated sigh.

"The man obtained blood somewhere. I don't know how many vampires you've fought, Richard, but invulnerability on top of regeneration and superstrength makes for a very, very bad combination. I was caught in the moment, and so I minimized the possible damages by letting myself have a small amount of freedom. It worked, barring Inertia's interference."

"And Batman showed me the photos. You almost leveled the street. There was a lot of blood, too, and his analysis came up with the distinct lack of results that very few people can achieve, one of them being you."

"I did not ever say I decimated him, which would be the response were I to fully release myself. I let out just enough to hurt him, and your question of my control is frankly insulting."

That it wasn't incorrect was an issue that does  _not_  need raising.

"And your off-duty time? I thought you and Zee handled it."

"We did, and it has been far less uncomfortable since," she lies. "But let me make something clear. My  _personal_  time is exactly that. Cyborg travels, Beast Boy goes clubbing, Zatanna does her shows, and you and Koriand'r do whatever it is you two do that I don't inquire into. And yet I can't after all these years decide to find interests and hobbies that will remove me from the Tower? Who are you to complain if I don't clear my plans with you?"

The last statement comes out with a cold, accusing glare, his reacting emotions of suspicion and guilt slamming into her mind from nowhere.

"Okay, I can see your point," he sighs while massaging his neck. "It isn't my business. Just one thing."

She raises her eyebrow inquiringly, saying nothing as she tries to make sense of his reaction.

" _Don't_  call me Richard when we're on duty," he growls.

"And yet you have no problems being addressed that way from Koriand'r or Zatanna. I'm hurt," Raven snarks with a smirk. "We're in our home. It would not kill you to loosen up a bit, and coming from  _me_ , you should realize just how sad the state of things must be for you,  _Nightwing_. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a deluded vampire to hunt down."

She leaves the room, laughing at his blush as she goes.

Focusing on what could have caused his suspicion, she fails to see Cyborg until she marches into him, bouncing back to the floor without moving him.

"Sorry," she mumbles while rising.

"No problem. You know, you'd save yourself a pain in the ass if ya' just told him you were datin'," the metal man laughs. "Nothin' scares 'im into shuttin' up faster than emotions."

"He already suspects me of  _something_. There's no incentive to possibly have him running his Dark Knight routine and tracking who my girlfriend is," she replies nonchalantly.

Her eyes widen as her mind catches up with her words, a dark blush creeping along her cheeks.

"Were you listening?"

"Not by choice. On my way to get some eats," he shrugs. "For what it's worth, I don't agree with him. You've got just as much right to have a life as anyone else, hero or villain… when they ain't committin' crimes," he adds with a grin.

"Thank you… Have a good meal," she says, parting from him with a smile.

As soon as she reaches her room, a black raven takes over her body, and she appears the next moment in Jinx's living room.

"That didn't take long."

Jinx looks up from where she lay across the couch, resting her open book against her stomach.

"So what'd bird-brain say?"

"He already knew about our gathering in Gotham. My powers rendered everyone who could identify anyone there asleep," she adds to her girlfriend's terrified gaze.

"Then he knew it was you because…?"

"More of my unique physiology. Batman gathered blood samples from the street. Mine is rather hard to mistake. I told him Inertia pulled them out with the item and that I'm heading out to hunt them down right now."

"And yet, I'm guessing that the insubordination and spycraft ain't what has you upset," Jinx muses, rolling to put her feet on the ground.

"I am not  _upset_ … Worried. Very,  _very_  worried."

"Why? He didn't threaten you or anythin', right?"

With a sigh, Raven takes a seat next to her, glaring at the wall.

"He raised a point that I don't want to indulge with thought at the moment."

"…Can you tell me anything about it? I mean, if I can help..."

She trails off, feeling somewhat awkward.

Raven stares into her gaze for several moments, clearly deliberating on something with herself.

Finally, she gives a slow nod, and takes a seat against the meta's side on the couch.

"As my girlfriend, I'll tell you that I'm growing rather tired of being under constant watch, which his scrutiny over my free time proves that I am, whether I let it irritate me or not."

Jinx wraps her arm around the woman's stomach and pulls her even closer, smiling when the psychic's head nestles into her shoulder.

"And as my partner, I'll tell you that his concerns, that I have begun to prefer doing my own work over being a team player, are not unsound," she continues. "I have, since the two of us began working together, found myself less and less caring of the petty squabbles I am forced to intervene in with the Titans whenever Cinderblock or Mumbo Jumbo break out to annoy everyone."

"Couldn't you join the Justice League? They've got tons of solo acts, and they don't deal with that kinda' crap," Jinx offers.

At that, Raven laughs, the sound entirely bitter.

"That will never happen, even if I for some reason became brain damaged and decided I wanted to be with them."

"I'm gonna' play it safe and not ask," Jinx mutters. "One thing I been thinking about while you're gone."

"What?" the psychic asks with a frown, her girlfriend's concern setting her further on edge.

"Will Nevermore be…  _stable_ … while you're dealing with what you need to deal with? I mean, it's a reflection of your mind, right?"

"There are sections of it that are likely not the safest at the moment, but we'll be staying in the usual spot while dealing with these things. Frankly, I think that, while undoubtedly the safest place for it, we need to come up with an alternative for storing them. I believe that part of my change earlier may have resulted from the power and emotions of the items leaking into me. There is the matter of your influence likely also lowering my defenses-"

Jinx stiffens, her eyes widening in shock.

"- _but_  I am far more willing to remove the items than to remove myself from you," Raven quickly continues, smiling as the woman relax into her side. "Ultimately, both may not be an issue to my control for much longer. I am setting some plans into motion, things I should likely have done years ago."

"If it means we don't have to stop working, and, uh, doing  _other things_ , together, I'm all for it, Rae. So, can we get workin' on the cosmic balance  _shtick_ , so we can hurry on to having more fun?"

Smiling, Raven raises her hand, planting a kiss on the woman's cheek as her eyes flare black.

In the next moment, they are in the familiar floating landscape of Nevermore.

Where they land, the yellow-garbed Raven sits with a spear, goblet, and amulet at her side.

"When you decide you're ready, you  _really_  need to tell me the deal with there being two of you. Still find it weird," Jinx muses.

With a sweep of her hand, the yellow Raven sends the items floating toward them before returning her gaze to a book in her lap.

The items land in a row on the ground, the dark emotions in them screeching inside her skull.

"I suggested getting these things out of here," the woman states. "Things have been acting up here since you two began storing items here. Her  _display_  was due to an irritant gaining influence from their negative presence."

"Has there been any…  _activity_?" Raven asks, her concern sending a bolt of foreboding through Jinx.

"Some disagreement on how to take Richard's actions and emotions. A small amount of concern over how terrified your slip-up may have made your girlfriend, which went away when she reaffirmed your trust in her as correct. Nothing nearly as drastic as Sebastian caused," the yellow Raven deadpans.

Jinx blushes at being referred to so distantly by the clone, her tone reminding her of the Raven of the past.

"Alright. Shall we?" Raven asks as she extends her hand to the meta.

With a nod, they form a loose circle around the objects and begin floating.

Slowly, the power from them begins burning its way out into the universe, the evil mutterings leaving Raven as it goes.

When the spear and amulet are drained, a thought occurs to Raven.

"We can't completely drain the goblet. They won't buy that Blood used the whole thing."

Jinx nods, her eyes still closed in a frown of concentration.

"I told you I'm getting better at this. Just need some instruction."

They focus more energy on the goblet, neither of them seeing the waves of black light rising from Raven's body.

Slowly, the goblet begins glowing in kind.

"I know it might be difficult, but I need you to hold the circuit we make stable."

Jinx nods, the strain on her mind slowly increasing as Raven lets some of her concentration leave the invisible ring they form.

"Azarath Metrion  _Zinthos_ ," Raven intones.

A black raven of energy launches from her floating body, sliding into the cup.

Sweat begins to pour from both women as Raven slides past the grating negative emotions in the cup's magical core.

Sensing what she's looking for, she delves deeper, an image of an aged man dipping the goblet through a bath tub spotted scarlet coming to her mind.

The red liquid within the tub turns to clear water, even as the clear liquid in the cup turns its former bloody hue.

A mental hand lashes out and swipes at the energy making the memory up.

As soon as she connects, Raven's mind is thrown back to her body.

The goblet gives a pulse of ugly, red light, and the air goes still.

With a huff, the women fall to the ground, Raven gasping air desperately into her throat.

With a wave of her hand, Raven drops the spear and amulet through her portals into the museum they originated in.

They are slow to recover, the strain harsher than what's come before.

Raven is the first to recover, quickly moving over to her girlfriend and pulling her to her side.

A blue glow surrounds them, and Jinx's panting eases.

"No wonder you were so good. You really got the magic touch, Rae," the hex caster says with a light moan.

"Flatterer," Raven returns with a bright blush.

"Yep. Now, c'mon, the sooner you show off your trophy, the sooner we can get to sweating for a much better reason."

Grinning, Raven pulls them away from her mind, not missing the amused expression on her yellow clone's face.

Slowly standing, the empath gives Jinx a deep kiss, ending it at their mutual moan.

"I shall be back  _hopefully_  shortly, as long as you have no objections."

"I'm objectin' to you leavin' in the first place. Now go before I decide to detain you."

Smiling, Raven falls through another portal, the goblet gripped in her hand.

As soon as she rises in the common room, her smile vanishes, finding Nightwing and Zatanna sitting on the couch, their heads whipping to face her as her feet audibly land on the carpet.

The demoness bites back a hiss at the emotions that assault her from the two, and she leans heavily on sarcasm to hide it.

"I present Elizabeth Bathory's goblet. There's some poor humour in a vampire having this, and as comedy is Beast Boy's hobby, I decided to alleviate it of him."

Nightwing shoots to his feet, eyes narrowed. Zatanna, though, is the first to speak.

"That thing? It's barely got any power left in it. Considering the goblet's marked as incredibly dangerous, that can't be right," she argues.

"It appears he used it to heal himself. And to get more power. So he'd already taken a large chunk of its power. You know how terrible gold is for storing energy, Zatanna," she remarks, waving the goblet about nonchalantly.

"You fought him alone  _again_?" Nightwing growls.

"Actually, no. The power, the blood he gained from drinking from it was linked to the goblet. I simply took it from him and drained the power from it into the universe to be recycled for something less dangerous. As soon as it was weakened as you see now, the blood vanished and he turned into his former, scrawny self."

Zatanna stares silently at her, her suspicion and disbelief rolling in crashing waves against the empath's mental barriers.

"As a bonus, I found an amulet and spear that were also on the list where I found him. They were non-magical, as it turns out, except for the ugly emotions in them. They're currently resting in their former homes."

"Good work?" Nightwing asks, unable to hide his surprise at the utterly chatty psychic. "I think this puts us roughly a quarter through the list."

"Hang on," Zatanna interrupts. "Who has him in custody?"

"Deathstroke is my guess. Inertia seems to have some form of mental connection to the man, and he came running when I was in the process of knocking him unconscious. And I'd rather not become a workaholic, so you'll pardon me if I don't immediately start tracking him down now that he has no magical items. Two manhunts is just fine for one day."

Something seems to form in Zatanna's gaze, but it vanishes before the empath can even be sure it exists. In the wake of its disappearance, the sorceress's suspicion seems to vanish.

"Good enough. Get the cup to its former museum, and then take the night, Raven, you definitely earned it." Nightwing says in way of dismissal.

Raven frowns at the sense of  _wrongness_ , now coming from both of them as opposed to solely Zatanna. The sense of guilt at her arrival is not missed, either.

Without another word, she disappears once again, sending the goblet to the storage of its new host mid-transit.

When she arrives at Jinx's home, her bad mood quickly evaporates, a phenomena she can certainly become accustomed to…  
 *************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I hope you're all thoroughly enjoying yourselves thus far. Whether you are or aren't, let me know. See you next time!


	18. Threat

#  XVII. Threat

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

_1 month later…_

Raven's sleeping mind begins to stir, a strange, alien presence forming in its depths.

The comfort of her lover's arms, a pleasantry she had quickly become accustomed to, is not enough to fight the evil of the presence.

Outwardly, her body begins sweating heavily while a look of discomfort takes form.

In her mind, though, a storm brews.

Fiery red eyes burn in a black sky, a thought long-since buried rising as lava and smoke surrounds Raven, no land to be seen anywhere.

A rumbling growl sounds through the smoke, and a blast of black lightning rips its way through the miasma.

The scene in her mind jarringly shifts, the image of a man she'd read in one of Richard's files to be Vandal Savage taking form.

He is running around a barren landscape, ducking low in hunt of his prey, a large feline creature of some kind.

With a roar, he lunges at the beast, too focused on his newest meal to notice the brilliant flash of light in the sky.

By the time he notices its shadow, a dead sabertooth tiger at his feet, the meteor strikes.

Instead of the certain death expected of an impact of such scale at such a close range, the savage crawls out of the crater with green smoke rising from his body.

As he lets out a primal roar, the scene shifts once more.

A large man garbed in mountaineering equipment slams away at the ground with a pickaxe.

Seeming to find something of value, a large smile forms on his lips, and he begins hacking away at the strangely colored ground.

Yet another transition takes place just as he's pulling his discovery up.

Now Raven watches as a woman stands over a burning laser, sparks shooting upward from a mass of strange, white rock.

Time seems to move in fast-forward, the rock breaking down and melting into a bizarre, sparkling white liquid. The liquid immediately starts steaming as it pours through a sieve-live device into a metal tube.

Steam fills Raven's vision, and when it clears, the woman holds up a solid, shining white ring, shot through with black dots.

The scene changes one last time, Raven finding herself in a museum. A glass display case lies shattered on the ground, and a tall, thin shadow is spotted running out into an alleyway.

With a gasp, Raven's eyes open as her head beats a manic rhythm inside her chest.

" _I do not have visions_ ," she mentally growls.

" _ **Father does**_ ," a rumbling voice argues. " _ **At least pertaining to the plane which he occupies.**_ "

" _And I am_ not _Trigon, Rage."_

 _"_ _ **No, something for which we are all glad, I'm sure. But your defeat of him may have set a course for his powers to move to a new host.**_ "

" _Energy doesn't break down, it simply moves elsewhere, as our recent treatment of the artifacts has surely drilled into you,"_  Wisdom chimes in.

With a slight growl, Raven forces herself to leave her mental conference, thinking on the images shown to her.

A light purring sound brings her attention to her side, and she finds herself staring into the sleeping face of her girlfriend.

The world  _adorable_  is one not in Raven's lexicon. And yet, she finds no other word fitting to use to describe Jinx's slumbering face, a smile curving her slightly parted lips and her nose scrunched.

Pleasure, and many other warm feelings, roll away from the slumbering sorceress, doing quick work of dampening Raven's bad mood, if not her exhaustion.

Deciding not to let her experience ruin Jinx's good dream, she slowly falls into a portal beneath her, coming up in a silent crouch on the floor next to the bed.

With a grunt, Jinx's arms wrap around a pillow and hugs it to herself.

Her face contorts as something bothers her in her sleep, and slowly, one eye blearily opens.

Groaning, she rolls over and stares pointedly at the clock before returning her tired gaze to the standing empath.

"Nuh-uh. Too early. Getcher' sweet ass back'ere," she mumbles.

Raising an eyebrow at her, Raven feels a familiar smile forming.

"Down, girl. I need to send a quick message. A minute at most."

"Too many words. Ya ain't back here by then, I'm not gonna' be a happy Jinx," the woman mutters, already in the process of falling back asleep.

Smiling, Raven picks up Rachel Roth's cell phone and quickly types a message to Gizmo, telling him the details of her dream and to look into if the ring exists at all.

"Couldn't even make it half a minute, with such a tempting offer right here," Raven mutters with a false sigh.

With the same grin on both women's faces, she once again crawls into Jinx's warm embrace, laughing when the woman wraps her legs and arms around her and nuzzles her head into her neck.

"Goin' nowhere," she mutters.

"Such fine incentive," Raven laughs.

Just as Raven begins falling back to sleep in the comfortable hold, the cell phone begins vibrating, sounding not unlike a buzzsaw against the wood it rests upon.

Jinx gives a groan, opening an eye to glare accusingly at her.

"If that ain't a present for me, I'm gonna' beat sense inta' who's callin' at oh-dark-thirty," she mumbles.

Too tired to fight her blush, Raven sends a mental limb out and floats the phone above them, entirely too comfortable to get up again.

It flips open with an audible click, and she sighs as she reads the information.

"Well, I'm here, so that kinda' makes who's keepin' me awake a short list."

Raven ignores her and reads over the lengthy text from Gizmo. What she finds does not help her relax and go back to sleep.

Evidently, there had been a few dozen magical rings stolen over the long heists, but with his usual talent at research, and aid of the D.M.A. database, made short work of the lead.

One ring on the planet was made from a meteorite, and it belongs to Vandal Savage.

Or  _belonged_ , until he for whatever reason lost it and it ended up in a Gotham museum.

Surprisingly, from what he's gathered, the ring was stolen less than a week ago, and it didn't fit the description of how the other items were stolen, as if unrelated.

"Jinx, you can shut up and go back to sleep or you can continue complaining and you'll have to join me with getting ready for the day at  _oh-dark-thirty_ , as you so eloquently put it."

"It's work," Jinx groaned. "Damnit, woman, even villains get rest."

"I took all of today off to remain in your company," Raven deadpans. "Rest doesn't necessarily include sleep."

Jinx groans again, slowly releasing her hold on her.

"What is it? If it ain't urgent, I ain't gettin' off this bed, whether you do or not."

Smirking, Raven runs her hand through her girlfriend's hair, watching as she shivers in appreciation.

"I had a dream. I'll spare the details, but suffice it to say I got a potential lead from it."

Her cell phone falls from the air into her open hand, her eyes scanning further down the report.

"Vandal Savage, if you're unaware, is an immortal supervillain. I only know about him because of a discussion I had at one point on whether immortality is truly a thing that can be achieved with someone who knew of him. Evidently, he at some point had a ring made from the meteorite that granted him immortality. It apparently was stolen from Gotham a short time ago, and it is a very dangerous thing to have lying around."

Jinx becomes more alert at that, her curiosity rearing its ugly head.

"How recent?"

"Recent enough that Gizmo believes it's still in Gotham's boundaries… And his source appears to have been unable to tell him who stole it, which seems to make him think he or she knows and is just too scared to give anything concrete."

"This means we're going to Gotham again, doesn't it?" Jinx asks, glaring sleepily at her lover.

"Not just a pretty face, if there was ever any doubt," Raven remarks, quickly kissing her before she can retort.

When she pulls back, Jinx gives a sigh between her panting breaths and both women sit up.

"Alright, alright, I could see why this'd be important enough to not've waited a few hours. Still, I  _must_  be doing something horribly wrong if you can dream about things other'n me."

Raven doesn't comment on the statement, simply laughing as she stands up.

A shower quickly follows, with Raven eventually kicking Jinx out so she can actually remove the meta's scent from herself.

As Raven heads out, she presses another kiss onto her lips, and it's with a blush that she materializes in her room in the Tower.

She had given up feeling guilty about lying to Nightwing quickly after finding out how enjoyable her time with the hex caster was becoming.

Not for the first time, she moves out of her room as though there the entire time, Nightwing the only one in the Tower awake.

Or, that's how it usually is. As she rounds the corner leading to the common room, though, she finds Kori, Zatanna, and Cyborg all with him, as well.

Steeling herself, she floats into the room and gives a yawn, not nearly as false in nature as she wishes.

" _I really should've just given it two hours. Not like the vision was going anywhere,"_  she grouses internally.

"Morning," she sighs, moving to prepare her tea.

"Any word on Inertia or Deathstroke?" Nightwing asks in greeting.

"Not that I've heard. But I'll keep an ear out when I'm in Gotham today."

"You're gettin' to be as bad as Nightwing," Cyborg laughs.

"Not intentionally," she shrugs. "And did those tips pay off?"

Raven had decided, after weeks of becoming more irritated with Nightwing's suspicions and Zatanna's odd behavior, that it would be best to give them leads Gizmo gathered.

As long as they found the items and didn't question her on where the leads came from, Raven had found it to be very useful for getting their leader's attention off of suspecting her of something she has yet to discern.

"Yeah. I got ta' meet Green Lantern," the metal man proclaims proudly. "Apparently he wasn't happy something belonging to that planet their power comes from was just sittin' unprotected."

"Fascinating. Zatanna, when you do eventually return to the League, you really must get on starting some magical organization within to keep their eyes on these things," Raven throws over her shoulder.

Her expression gives nothing away as the sorceress's irritation quickly permeates the air.

"At any rate, Gotham…?" Nightwing prompts.

"Ah, yes. While I was out yesterday, an associate brought to my attention that just approximately three days ago, a magical ring was lifted from a museum there. I think it's probably still in-town, and the way he described it, it may simply be an opportunist rather than whatever we've been dealing with. Might as well go and check it out."

"You sure? It might make looking faster if someone goes with you," Nightwing reasons.

"I cannot. I, too, have gotten  _the lead_ , from a people on a planet not far from here. It may be related to the Intergang you believe may have something to do with the robberies," Koriand'r interjects.

Raven's eyes widen as a strange sense of relief fills the air in the room, centered around Nightwing and Zatanna.

" _You're overthinking things. He's not that stupid_ ," Raven mentally growls, stomping down an unfortunately reasonable and growing suspicion.

"And BB and I got called last night. We're headin' out to Steel City soon as he's up to give Bumble Bee and the guys some help with some problems. Apparently just cause Jump's criminals are smart doesn't mean their's are."

"And Zatanna has a show in an hour, if I'm not mistaken. And you need to stay here to deal with calling us all back if something big comes up. You were saying?" Raven adds with an upraised eyebrow.

"Alright. You sure it won't be a problem working as a team again, when all this settles down?" their leader asks.

"I foresee no issues," Raven partially lies, thoughts of Jinx immediately coming to her mind.

"Alright. Track the lead down, call if you get into trouble," he sighs.

Raven keeps her mask in place as his exasperation slips, the irritation and powerful sense of suspicion rising in a torrent in its wake.

She nods and returns to her room, promptly falling into a trance to regain her lost sleep…  
 *************

Zatanna sits resting against Nightwing, frowning at the thoughts rolling around in her mind.

"You can't really think that she's got some contact network that keeps feeding her these objects, Richard," she states.

His eyes narrow, the ever-present fog on both their minds amplifying his paranoid tendencies.

"I wouldn't be surprised, honestly. She's gotten…  _distant_. More than when we first started the group, even. I won't say it's impossible that she  _does_  know plenty of questionable people, especially with how much time she keeps disappearing from the grid over the last few months."

Her hand grips his forearm, a frown curling her lips.

"Oh, come  _on_ , Dick. You're thinking the same thing I am."

"She's not the only person who can slip undetected into places all over the world," Nightwing sighs. "I'd prefer to work my way through the  _thieves_  with that talent, before I accuse my teammates of anything."

"Uh-huh. That's why you've got those-"

"That and this are unrelated," he cuts in. "Strictly precautionary. Distrusting someone and treating them as a threat are different."

He meets her gaze, her determined glare bringing a sigh from the former Boy Wonder.

"Weren't you complaining I'm getting to be too much like Bruce just a month ago? Look in a mirror, Zee."

"I think you look at me enough for a lifetime, thanks," she remarks, laughing when he blushes.

Her mirth vanishes and she leans into him, her index finger poking the plate covering his chest.

"She was lying through her teeth, Richard. She had to be. With her habits of late, wouldn't she have immediately headed out to look for this thing yesterday when she heard about it if that was true?"

With a sigh, Nightwing presses down on the bridge of his nose, desperately trying to stay the forming headache.

"Alright, Zee. Point… Keep out of her senses. Do not intervene, and do not interfere with anything she does in Gotham. If she really looks like she needs help, jump in, but otherwise, just… keep an eye on her…"

Zatanna nods and quickly vanishes in a cloud of smoke, the cloud covering her mind quickly transforming her suspicion to anger as she goes...  
 *************

 _Author's Notes_ :

On the pacing of the story, I originally had it scripted out for all of part 1 (prologue to chapter 24) take place within one month. I decided around chapter 14 that that time frame would be really rushed for all the events going on around Raven. So sorry for the time skipping.

Things in part 1 are coming to a head, and I hope you're as excited about reading it as I am writing it. Either way, be sure to let me know. See you next time!


	19. Mind Games

#  XVIII. Mind Games

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven and Jinx work their way once again through the streets of Gotham, memories of their last adventure visibly making Jinx tense.

Currently, Raven's eyes are glowing black, seeing something that Jinx's own cannot no matter how much she tries.

"You're going to give yourself a headache," Raven warns without gazing at her.

"Yeah? We'll see. I'm still thinking of ways to make sure this is the last time you wake up because of some weird not-vision instead of replaying our activities before you fell asleep."

"Getting a tad presumptuous, Jinx. When this heist stuff is done with, I don't imagine we'll be able to see each as often while you're on other operations."

A pain suddenly makes itself known to Raven, amplified by Jinx's own mirror of the emotion.

"Then that just gives me… what? Two years, at the rate things are going? I can totally wear you down into joining the dark side by then," the hex caster laughs.

"The  _dark side_? Really?"

"Hey, what I do is positively black compared to what bird-brain's world view is," Jinx returns with a shrug.

" _Am I sure of that_?" Raven mentally questions.

"Yes, and by that logic, our last visit here would put me on a list with Deathstroke for him. I'd really rather not entertain that thought."

She focuses back on her search, the trail from the museum gradually getting stronger.

"Point still stands. 'Sides, I told you when we first started hanging out that with your talents, I could get you at least an interview with a snap a' my fingers."

"Either way, we won't have to discuss this seriously for quite some time. I rather like things as they stand, Zatanna and Nightwing notwithstanding."

A strange sense of foreboding comes and goes in seconds through the psychic, a cold sweat suddenly breaking out.

Ignoring it, she turns down an empty street, stomach tightening in tension as the end of the trail quickly approaches.

"Ya' know, I think it'd be worth it just so you didn't always hafta' make an end-run in the morning so bird-brain don't figure out you prefer the company of yours truly than him an' the witch. Oh, speakin' of-"

"I'd rather not think about it at the moment. Them, not you. I'd much prefer you on my mind than the fight we're undoubtedly walking into," she adds quickly to her girlfriend's shock.

"Awe, sweet-talker," Jinx laughs, pressing into her side and laying a kiss on her cheek.

Blushing, Raven's expression turns serious, a finger rising to her lips.

Jinx's mirth instantly vanishes, a professional mask sliding into place as the two take up a spot on the wall near a warehouse door.

Ever so slowly, Raven offsets the lock with her soul-self, the door sliding silently open as it's pushed forward.

Raven's eyes widen as she looks at the interior.

It seems to be a warehouse storing construction materials. What catches the psychic's attention is the bed set in the dead center of the large room, a man resting on it.

A strange light emanates from the man's brain, held in a glass case atop his split head.

And on Psimon's finger rests the ring, exactly how it looked in her dream.

 _"Vision_ ," Wisdom's voice argues. " _Proof is in front of your eyes that you weren't imagining something_."

Raven ignores the voice and noiselessly slides through the door, Jinx following her with just as little noise.

Her pink eyes glow like neon in the darkened warehouse, but Psimon's sleeping expression reveals no notice of the light.

The women slowly approach him from both sides, making sure to make no noise.

But where they can both be silent as ghosts, Raven's mind keeps her hidden from the man's psychic detection, a part of her nature that had long become automatic.

Jinx, as skilled as she has become from working and training with Raven, possesses no such psychic subtlety.

Just as Raven's soul-self reaches out to attempt slipping the ring from the man's finger, Psimon's eyes snap open, a smirk forming as he takes their appearance in.

The ring on his finger glows sinisterly, his ashen skin taking the faint red color.

"Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise. Raven, right? And… I don't know you," he sniffs dismissively at Jinx.

A flare of light goes through his eyes, and a pleased smile forms that sends ripples of revulsion through the women.

"Ah, that makes quite the picture, then. Who am I to question what Ms. Diaz chooses to associate with herself? Was it a wise move, do you guess, to bring along someone with you whose mind I could turn into  _quite_  the mess?" he laughs.

A hiss sounds in the back of Raven's throat, and Jinx feels a pressure in her head relax before she even knew it existed.

"I'd thank you to keep your filth away from either of our heads. I know how much you would prefer not to  _offend_  me. Make this easy on yourself and give me the ring, Psimon," Raven states, stepping threateningly towards him.

"So  _confident_! You know that aside from incapacitating you, I couldn't fight you when I was aiding the Brotherhood, correct? Of course you do. You do pay  _so much attention_  to things of this nature, I imagine. But I'm willing to wager that you are utterly unaware of things as they currently stand," he adds with a sinister edge to his voice.

Jinx stares confused between the two, completely lost on how they know each other.

" _This is becoming way too much of a habit!"_ Jinx internally snarls, memories of Sebastian Blood rising.

"Uh… Raven, what the hell?"

She doesn't remember Psimon, given that she was preoccupied during the Titans' assault, but it had never occurred to her that some villains would actively avoid the Titan, or have a reason to even think of doing so.

Given her acknowledging nod to her girlfriend, Jinx knows that Raven will be giving her answers after the threat is dealt with.

"I  _do_ know, Psimon. Or at least, I know that you're no longer as cautious as you should be. Let me assure you that your confidence is misplaced."

"Oh? Is that so? Well, you'll pardon me if I don't start quivering. Without  _him_  around, you should know your powers alone cannot stand a chance. Powerful though you may be, you've got nothing on me."

At that, a smirk crosses Raven's lips and her eyes gain an unearthly glow. As the room seems to dim around her body, some of Psimon's confidence visibly vanishes.

"If I caused his downfall alone, what do you think I can do to  _you_ , Psimon, were I to not hold back? He could wipe your powers away with a thought, and  _I_  beat  _him_. Your confidence is misplaced."

Something tickles at the back of Jinx's mind. As she watches Raven's growing amusement, the words of Brother Blood return with a snap.

" _He said it was patricide. She's talking about killing her old man... Who the hell was her father_?" she questions, staring at her girlfriend.

"Ha! At best a fluke, at worst an assisted suicide. He  _was_ getting on in his years. I'd say that my powers work better than ever proves  _your_  arrogance is out of touch with the reality of this situation,  _Raven_."

His own eyes gain a glow similar to Raven's, and Jinx rushes to her side, letting her hex magic flow.

With a glance between the two women, they move into action, running to either side of the man. Both bring their hands together with sparks of their unique energies as bolts leave them.

As the black and pink energies approach, the bed he had rested on suddenly lifts itself from the floor.

The energies meet the barrier with an explosion of multi-colored sparks.

By the time the dust is cleared, an invisible force makes itself known, slamming into Jinx's chest.

With a grunt, she slams into the concrete and begins seeing black spots.

In the process of forcing herself back up, she sees a large sheet of metal spinning through the air at her, looking not unlike a saw blade at its speed.

Before it can decapitate her, a black coating forms overtop the metal, and it reverses course, the air screaming in resistance as it spins back at Psimon.

With a bored wave of his hand, he slams the sheet upward, an echoing  _clang_  sounding as it implants into the roof.

A dark, ugly burst of red light rises from the ring, a similar glow filling his eyes.

More construction materials follow the first sheet, multiples of them snapping into thousands of jagged metal spikes.

Raven appears next to Jinx and they both begin throwing their power out, destroying the blades as they come.

Jinx feels her girlfriend's hand on her shoulder, and they sink into the ground through a portal just as the skewers reach them.

A hex bolt flies at the man's back as soon as they come out behind him, a fiery black fist going with it.

A large chunk of wood launches in an arc over him, exploding into splinters that follow its path when the attacks hit.

Raven moves into a spin, throwing the chunks with a large black shield to plant into the wall nearest them.

With a growl, Jinx cups her hands together, her eyes and palms flaring with a brilliant light.

Sensing her girlfriend's plan, she tightens her hold on her shoulder and places her free hand overtop hers.

"Azarath Metrion  _Zinthos_!"

Her eyes flare with black light, the energy mixing between the hex caster's closed palms and making the pink glow within almost purple.

" _ **Ustulo**_!" Jinx shouts before pushing the built energy out.

The purple ball explodes in the air, becoming a mass of flames of the same color.

Psimon watches with increasingly visible anger as the flames circle him, trapping him in place.

"The ring, if you would, Psimon," Raven states with a raised hand.

His eyes widen, and Raven grunts as he mentally assaults her, her barriers keeping him out, but with more effort than expected.

"The ring gives me all I need to beat you, witch," he laughs as his assault strengthens.

"Azarath Metrion  _Zinthos_!"

Raven's eyes turn obsidian, and the air seems to shimmer between the two as his mental reach is shoved back.

Suddenly, he ducks down and lets the power flow past him, focusing an attack on Jinx.

The hex caster grunts as he pushes at her fire, sweat beading on her forehead as she fights to keep him trapped and out of her mind both.

A sneer mars his expression, and a loud series of grating noises reaches her ears.

Before Jinx can call out a warning, a solid piece of metal zooms into her view and smashes into her stomach, making her feet leave the ground as it throws her back.

Raven follows her arc as a sharp pain takes form in her chest.

A wave of black light flows across the ground beneath the soaring hex caster, and when it's fully beneath her it rises.

She immediately comes to a stop, being gently lowered to the ground.

By the time Raven's attention turns back to Psimon, it's too late.

"Psimon says  _sleep_ ," he intones, barely a foot from her.

His hand slams into her forehead, and through the jarring sensation, he slips past her defenses, both psychics going utterly still.

Jinx recovers quickly and flips back to her feet, ready to attack.

Her heart rate spikes as she takes in their still forms, a sense of dread quickly flooding her.

When she runs forward, attempting to remove Psimon from her girlfriend, an invisible wall slams into place.

When she meets it, it reacts as a spring, throwing her back to the ground with a groan…  
 ***********************

Psimon floats above Raven, a grin on his face.

Raven rises from her crouch, an audible growl rising from the back of her throat.

"Get. out," she snarls, the red speckling in the air seeming to grow brighter.

"Oh, I don't think so. I've always wondered what a demon's mind might look like. You were going on so proudly about killing the old man, I found myself curious what you have locked up in here."

His eyes move around the landscape, a sniff of disappointment sounding.

"I was expecting more hellfire."

Raven rises to her full height, Psimon's eyes widening as speckling similar to what covers the obsidian sky forms in her violet eyes.

"You were better off outside of my mind, Psimon. Here, I have the power."

She rises off the ground, her body pulsing with black sparks in time with her breaths.

"You're delightfully deluded, my dear, dim, demi-demon. Your power cannot even enter the scope of mine, without the power your dear daddy gave you to be his portal. We're in your mind, but the mental domain is  _mine_."

The ring flares with bright, crimson light which quickly coats his entire body.

In an instant, Raven falls to the ground under a crushing pressure.

The landscape begins to waver, and a groan of pain leaves her as Psimon's hand takes a firm grip on her hair.

"What  _does_  a demon fear in their slumber, I wonder? Let's find out!"

Raven's mouth opens in a silent scream as his power takes hold, ripping things up from the darkest corners of her mind.

Her vision blackens for a moment, and when it clears once more, her worst fear lies before her.

Raven stares at herself, her mirror image garbed in a dark purple ballroom gown. Her skin is like fire, seeming not quite orange nor red, but having strong hints of both.

Where nails should be, daggers of black rest, gleaming hideously in the light cast by the sky above, a black and red reflection of Nevermore.

Four red slits for eyes stare into the distance, seeming to be looking for something.

Beneath her rests a throne based on a pile of stone bodies, horror and revulsion ripping through the real Raven at the familiar faces making up their ranks.

In a large circle around the throne's base lies the corpse of Malchior, seeming to send a message of some kind.

At the edges of his body, the ground drops sharply into a flowing moat of lava, sending oily black steam into the air where it meets and eats into the concrete surrounding it.

"Oh, so  _that_ 's your intent.  _Fascinating_ ," Psimon states with a tug on her hair.

Unwillingly, Raven looks where he wants her attention, and her stomach empties itself then, no longer able to hold itself.

Jinx lies off to the side of the body pile, leaning against it as if it were a comfortable body pillow.

Her eyes stare blankly into the distance, and on her forehead rests an ugly, black mark, as if the Mark of Skaath had been burned into her forehead and healed over to keep it there.

Raven snaps her eyes shut, violently jerking her head side to side in denial.

The pressure of her fear begins crushing down on her, seeming to bury her gradually into the ground at her feet.

"You're wrong!" she screams, a pulse of rage flooding her mind.

Psimon's eyes widen as he looks down on her, an amused smirk on his face.

" _Am_  I?" he asks.

Raven's eyes open again to find her own skin matching her mirror's, a familiar burning in her forehead bringing her extra set of eyes to her attention.

" _-en"_

Raven casts her gaze around, looking for the source of the sudden and out of place sound.

Outside of her mind, Jinx slams more and more of her hex energy into the barrier, screaming Raven's name. The pink light is enough to set off multiple detectors in the area, even Zatanna wincing from where she watches.

" _This isn't good. I couldn't stop things down there if I wanted to,_ " she mentally hisses, not paying any attention to the vice-like fog keeping her from acting to help the women.

Jinx doesn't know what is happening in her girlfriend's mind, but her convulsing body and the red hue to her is making it very much something to worry about.

Slowly, her screams slither their way past Psimon's hold, reaching Raven in the illusion.

" _ **He makes a fool of us!"**_  a voice snarls deep in her mind, the sound ripping the rest of the fog away in an instant.

Psimon immediately releases his hold as she stands, her body seeming to grow taller by the second.

The illusionary copy disappears in a flash of black light, Jinx's body and the throne vanishing with it.

Her lips split in a snarl, her teeth audibly grinding as she moves towards him.

"You thought to make me afraid of you, Psimon? Assumed me to be one of your victims who would cower when shown your illusions? I'll tell you something about demons. Even a halfling like me doesn't become  _afraid_  of your tricks. We get  _ **angry**_ ," she snarls, her voice sending a tremble through the ground on the last word.

Instantly, the rest of the illusion crashes in Psimon's fear.

He casts his gaze around in confusion, finding them standing in a volcanic landscape similar and yet very different to her fear.

"You think I'm that creative? That it was a  _trick_!? You give me far too much credit. I merely brought to the surface what is already in your own mind, Raven. You seem far better fit for Chaos's side, rather than playing hero, if this is the kind of thing you worry about."

Both are impressed with the man's acting talent, no trace of his absolute terror showing in his voice.

His eyes widen in mock surprise, his hope to throw her off telegraphing itself clearly to her rage-enhanced senses.

"I understand, now. You always try to build some form of karmic credit up so your soul may yet be saved when you turn on everything and everyone you love and hold dear!"

He jumps when another presence makes itself known, a Raven cloaked in red and sporting yet another pair of four red eyes appearing at his side.

" _ **You've talked quite enough, father's plaything,"**_  the red Raven states, her voice sending chills through his very soul.

"I quite agree," Raven says, letting her anger take reign.

Her hand extends, and the moment her Rage makes contact, the volcanoes around them explode in sprays of lava.

Psimon grunts and brings a barrier to form as fire rains from the sky, rocks quickly melting under the heat.

Raven now stands alone, a cruel smile on her lips and black flames rolling from her eyes.

"Azarath-"

"Wait! I'll give you the ring!" Psimon pleads, raising his hands in placation.

" _Metrion_ -"

He frantically pulls his power to bear, attempting to break his hold on her and leave her body.

" _ **Zinthos**_ **!"** Raven screams, her voice echoing and sending a violent tremor through the fiery hellscape.

Black power lashes out, and suddenly torrents of molten lava launch past her body, moving like living snakes towards the man's astral form.

A scream rips from him as the assault lands, and just as he begins to die, a flash of light goes off where his body stood.

Raven's eyes snap open immediately, Psimon's mental hold utterly gone.

She is vaguely aware of Jinx's screaming, and the weight of Savage's ring in her palm.

Four eyes glow pure white as they watch Psimon's retreat, a crack clearly visible against the glass covering his visible brain. White smoke rises from the crack, and his pain leaves a distinct presence in the air.

Her eyes and body shift back to their normal appearance as she separates Rage once more.

As soon as he's out of view, Raven falls to her knees, finally noticing the blood spurting from her nose and the various breaks and tears in her skin.

" _He almost killed me… First Sebastian and now Psimon, both have used my weakness to nearly cause me to kill myself… Something needs to be done,"_  she says, her voice meeting with agreement in her mind.

Suddenly, she feels Jinx's arms around her, and her shredded barriers give with a snap.

Tears begin rushing past the broken dam, and before she's aware of herself, her head is pressed into Jinx's shoulder, her body shuddering violently in her firm embrace…  
 ***********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Psimon, or Dr. Simon Jones, originally got his powers when, due to his research in dimensions, he made a deal with Trigon. I kind of unintentionally started writing his dialogue in alliteration and rhyme, and decided to go with it, because I only vaguely remember how he actually talks.

Ustulo- Latin for the verbs "Burn," "Burn up," or "Scorch," take your pick

As for everything else, I had a lot of fun writing the psychic battle, and I hope you all had just as much fun reading it. Either way, be sure to let me know. See you next time!


	20. Treachery

#  XIX. Treachery

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx holds the shaking empath tightly to her, gently running a hand through her purple hair and making soothing murmurs.

" _This cannot continue,"_  Raven growls in her mind.

" _Your control has slipped from the moment you began your liaisons with Jinx. This result is only surprising in how long it took to achieve it, and that you actually slipped enough for_ Psimon _to get in here and humiliate you,"_ Wisdom's voice whispers back.

" _I think you should just stop thinking so hard and do what we should have done years ago,"_  a higher and more upbeat voice chimes.

As Raven ponders this, her body ceases shaking, and slowly, her senses return to the world around her.

"Rae, talk to me. What the hell did he do to you? I couldn't get you away from him, and then his barrier drops and he gives this scream, and you start lookin' like you're bout to have a seizure, and-"

" _I was not the only one who may have been killed. And likewise I should have known she would be fine enough to not let him distract me enough to get past my blocks. When I arrive in Nevermore, all of you had better be at the forum. We have things to discuss. Incompleteness will not be the cause for my death."_

Many affirmations rise in her mind, and Raven tunes them out to focus on her panicking girlfriend.

"Jinx, let's get out of here," she interrupts.

Jinx stares at her with wide eyes, a slow nod her only reaction before blackness wraps around the two.

When they come up through her floor, Jinx immediately moves to the couch and stares at Raven.

Said psychic kneels before her, gently grasping her hands and holding her gaze.

"The time I mentioned, weeks ago? I can't expect you to wait any longer for the answers to your questions, which I'm sure number greatly. I do not know what you witnessed while I was entrapped, but I can surmise that separating right now may not be the best idea. I must, nonetheless, selfishly ask for half an hour reprieve, to get ready to bear my soul, as it were."

"Raven, you looked like you were going to die," Jinx interrupts. "I was throwing everything I had at whatever Psimon had around you, but I couldn't do a damn thing, and you were bleeding, and turning freaking  _red_ , and-"

"You saved me," Raven argues. "I… Psimon brought some things to light I'd thought dead and forgotten in my mind. If I had to guess, my…  _transformation_ … and my bleeding were the results of my mind being crushed by the darkness. Your voice pulled me out of that."

Jinx's eyes widen at that, Raven not so much as blinking.

"I need to give a report before Nightwing discovers our fight through other means as he did with Sebastian. Half an hour at most, and I will answer fully your every question. If our visits to Gotham have taught me anything, it is that I cannot continue as I have been."

Jinx squeezes her hands, looking for something in her gaze.

"There's more than just what you didn't tell me about Brother Blood and what Psimon did to you, isn't there?"

"While I'm gone, it may be prudent to hunt down any sources of alcohol you have here," Raven responds, a grim look taking her girlfriend's expression.

Raven hesitantly presses a kiss to her lips, her own fear alleviating somewhat when she eagerly responds.

With only a moment of hesitation, she shifts through dimensions and steps into the Titans Tower.

She quickly finds Nightwing in his and Kori's room, typing away furiously on a computer.

He doesn't acknowledge her presence, but his emotions tell her he's aware of it.

"The item I went to search for was in the hands of Psimon. A ring. He didn't seem connected to our thieves. I was, surprisingly, subdued by him, long enough for him to escape my grasp. The item is moderately powerful, but not one on our lists, as would be expected with how recent the theft is."

His suspicion slams into her as a physical force, her already weakened barriers doing nothing to stay the mental assault.

"How did he manage to subdue you? You're far stronger than him," he says with a growling quality to his tone.

Glaring at him, Raven senses warning bells going off in her mind that are as unhelpful at identifying their source as she has become accustomed to with the man.

"An illusion, which he used directly after keeping my mind occupied with attacks on multiple fronts. The nightmare from long ago was…  _unpleasant_ … and difficult to break free from."

His chair swivels, and she meets his hidden glare with her stoic mask in place.

"I can't think of many things that would do that to you. Should I be worried?"

"It was… when we destroyed Trigon, for weeks I had a thought plaguing my mind. The question of what would have happened if you had not found me and convinced me to fight against him after his arrival. What would have happened if I had not fought for my powers and my home. It was a silly thought, but it was enough to distract me while he escaped. I'll be ready next time."

"Make sure you are," he agrees.

The warnings in Raven's mind become louder, and the feeling of his suspicion give them credence. Once more, she finds herself wondering what the sense of  _wrong_  about the man is.

As she prepares to leave, Zatanna appears in a burst of smoke.

When the two are together, Raven's mind becomes further assaulted. An increasingly familiar emotion sparks in the air between the two, seeming somehow twisted and  _wrong_  compared to Jinx's own.

Anger immediately blossoms in Raven's heart, anger on behalf of the off-world Koriand'r, and anger at herself having had faith in Nightwing's intelligence.

To the pair, though, she shows nothing, giving them nothing to sense as her barriers slam back into place.

Something else distracts the psychic, though, an unexpected hostility smacking like raging tide against her tender blocks.

When Nightwing reads something into the sorceress's expression, his own emotions begin taking on the hostile quality.

" _If I didn't know better, I would say she suspects some great evil of me… And he seems to agree."_

An image of a bizarre, glowing iron cage fills her mind, and she immediately closes herself off so no more of her telepathy manages to reach them.

But the image is enough to cause a flash of thought to take form.

"If you'll excuse me," she says before floating away from the room.

As soon as she is in a blindspot of the camera watching the hallway, her soul-self flashes into existence around her.

The power quickly expands, and a black raven slides through the walls, placing her in the ventilation above Nightwing's room and masking her from Zatanna's detection.

"We need to talk," Zatanna growls, pointing her thumb at the door.

"I think we do," Nightwing agrees, quickly standing up.

As the pair leaves, Zatanna throws a glare at him.

"You'd better hope that damn cage is ready, Dick. Things are worse than we thought."

The words send a spike of worry through Raven, who brings her emotions as subdued as possible in the witch's presence.

When she feels their presences leave the Tower entirely, she slips through the metal and stands in front of Nightwing's computer.

A small spark of soul-self moves through the wall and sends her desired illusion of nothing amiss taking firm hold in the image camera monitoring his room.

Raven's soul-self extends, black hands flying across the keyboard of his computer faster than her own hands had any possibility of achieving.

Cracking the man whose mind she had shared in her youth is a simple matter, life secrets never spoken quickly giving rise to passwords as she digs into the mainframe of the Titans.

A folder suddenly catches her attention as she scans through. It is named innocuously enough, sounding like a dull blip of data nobody would ever have a point to look into.

But for her, the name is enough.

As the folder reveals its contents, horror and revulsion quickly ripple through Raven, her mask giving way to a snarl.

"You utter bastard," she hisses, reading quickly through document after document detailing his contingencies.

Each and every Titan on Earth is named in a document, and each one of them reveals the way in which her leader planned meticulously how to destroy them should they ever turn rogue.

" _Or piss him off_ ," she snarls internally.

Her own teammates' are the most detailed.

For Cyborg, a meticulously written virus engineered to make him blind and deaf in his mechanical elements, and routing the power away from his sonic cannon to disable his ability to fight.

For Beast Boy, simply overloading his senses until he is rendered unconscious.

As the others open for her, her eyes begin bleeding red, her mind quickly snapping reigns on her emotions lest she call the witch and her lover back.

Evidently, Nightwing had managed to obtain the manner of hand-cuffs that had originally rendered Starfire helpless on her arrival, which when combined with a drug that would make her, in his written words,  _agreeable_ , would render her helpless.

She vaguely notices Zatanna's surprising name among the documents, but she focuses on her own.

A hand flies over her mouth as she finally understands what  _cage_  Zatanna had referred to.

A detailed blueprint for a cage constructed entirely of iron is what begins his plan, along with notes on how to properly wire electricity so as to keep her contained but not harmed. No doubt supplied by Zatanna, a detailed series of anti-magic, and very specific anti-demon, runes are drawn.

The cage would undoubtedly be enough to contain her.

But her stomach turns at the details of how to amplify a Belle Reve inhibitor collar, where to acquire a pair of iron handcuffs, and how to best gag her so as not to choke her but to keep her from using spells.

" _This plan would not just capture me. It would make a husk of me,_ " she growls, unable to keep the rumbling sound from rising out of her throat.

Her body begins to violently shake, and with another growl, she quickly puts skills learned from observing both Cyborg and Gizmo into action.

All presence of her activity on the system vanish in a matter of key clicks, not wanting to give him so much as a hint that she's aware of his plan before she's enacted its ruination.

"You will know of how ill-thought your plan truly is, Richard, on this I swear," she snarls, her body quickly fading into a portal at her feet.

She steels her resolve, putting thoughts of preparation and revenge to the back of her mind in favor of readying for undoubtedly uncomfortable questions…  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I was hoping to avoid my dislike of Nightwing as a character coming through, but realistically, the man was raised by Batman and trained by a few unstable people, Deathstroke among them (in the cartoon, not sure on the comics). Anger issues, paranoia, and vile but effective contingency plans are kind of par for course. And the mysterious fog amplifying it all doesn't seem to be helping matters, either.

Hope you're all enjoying yourselves so far. Let me know what you do or don't like with my writing. See you next time!


	21. Trust

#  XX. Trust

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven rises from her portal to find Jinx incredibly nervous.

She sits on her couch in the same spot she had less than fifteen minutes prior, the only proof of her movement the open bottle of clear alcohol, a red mark naming the liquid facing her.

Next to the bottle lays the plastic that had, evidently, been wrapping it until recently.

Which is why it is worrying to see how much of the alcohol is missing from the bottle.

"Wanted to see how good my metabolism really is," Jinx explains in greeting.

Raven moves to the couch and pulls her into her arms, gently curling the pink tips of her hair.

"I'm sorry for not making myself clear, Jinx. I meant the alcohol for me. Given what I just discovered, I'm willing to find out how well I can suppress my faculties to allow what I understand is a very good way to forget things."

"Shoulda' told me that," Jinx mutters into her neck.

"I was distracted. You certainly worked through it quickly in my absence, though."

"It tastes really good. Not that it made me drunk enough to not feel like the Earth's 'bout to rip open under me," she adds, unintentionally aloud.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, my fear likely at least matches yours… So what question do you want to start with? As promised, anything is free game, and I swear I will answer completely truthfully for the entirety of this conversation."

The geas takes hold, both women shivering at the sensation.

"Were you planning on ever answering my questions before?"

Raven leans back into the couch, laying Jinx's head on her thighs as her hand strokes her hair.

"I was. As I said, I knew a time to explain everything would come, were I to wish to continue our work together, in regards to being a team, or girlfriends, or whatever else came… I have been meditating on it for the past month, and was getting ready to have this discussion anyways."

"But suddenly you decided you're ready today," Jinx adds.

"I… Because of my screw-ups, both with Sebastian and with Psimon, I not only put my own life at risk, but yours as well. I need to inform you of what you're getting into, if you decide afterwards to continue any capacity of our relationship."

"I would argue that was due to my not being able to stand up to their power, not you," the hex caster argues.

"You can handle Sebastian fine… I can't say that I was fully focused on Psimon, though. Just something we can work on if we're still working together after tonight."

"That's the third time you said somethin' like that, Rae. I'm gettin' worried."

"I'm… sorry. I'm a bit more pessimistic than I have reason to be, and it's directed at you despite you being in no way the cause. I will keep it quiet while you ask more questions."

Jinx nods in acceptance, gently rubbing circles with her index finger on the psychic's legs.

Raven forces her attention away from the pleasant shivers her attentions send through her, keeping her mind on the task at hand.

"So… how many eyes do you have?"

"I have two. Most of the time. In fact, very rarely do I have the four eyes that I assume you saw both times I've lost my control in front of you."

"Four red, glowing, terrifying eyes," Jinx muses.

"Yes, well, that is also a part of my genealogy."

"Okay, then I guess you want me to ask what, exactly, you are," Jinx tentatively offers.

"Want, no… Expect, yes… I... I am a demon."

Jinx tenses against her, her rigid body causing Raven to quickly continue.

" _Half-_ demon, if I'm being technical. All of my oddness, the eyes, and undoubtedly the skin and terrible bloodlust you noticed with Sebastian are part of my nature, as is my soul-self."

Raven winces at the fear creeping through her girlfriend's mind.

"Half-demon, huh? Explains why you're so talented. So, what? Does your father work down in one of the Circles and took a holiday? Do you work for-"

"I do not answer to any demons," Raven growls, her anger quickly evaporating at her girlfriend's shock. "My father is not that kind of demon. Really, he has nothing to do with the Hell of this dimension, as far as I'm aware, but the term merely describes his appearance and personality…"

The geas presses on Raven's mind, and she fights a wince.

"My father is Trigon the Terrible."

Jinx immediately freezes against her girlfriend, her pink eyes slowly turning to meet the psychic's steady and somewhat watery gaze.

"Trigon… As in Demon Lord, makes and erases dimensions in a thought, civilization destroying god damn  _Trigon_?"

"That's dad," Raven deadpans, her eyes betraying the crushing emotions hidden from her tone.

"Okay, trying not to freak. I wasn't expecting  _that_. Um… well, that definitely explains how you're so unbelievably strong… Makes me wonder why you're one of the good guys, though."

Raven moves without thinking, kissing the woman as she finds far less terror than she had expected.

"I am not my father. I came to this dimension running from him, with the intent of finding a group capable of fighting with me to defeat him."

"Okay… I can see why you'd want to put off this explanation. Didn't you think giving me a heads-up would have made me better prepared to help if you ever lost it?"

Another wince forms on Raven's expression, this one having nothing to do with the geas.

"What brought me into existence should have no bearing on your opinion of me as a person. But I learned from Zatanna's prejudice when we met and the Titans' reactions to discovering it that this is not the normal reaction on this planet. I was… scared. I didn't want you to start believing me a monster."

Jinx sits up at that, a hurt expression on her face.

"It's freaky as shit, but you really thought I'd… what? Suddenly start attacking you? Raven-"

"No," Raven interrupts, forcing the tears welling in her eyes away. "I trust you more than that. I did not want you… afraid of me. The others remained my friend even after discovering what I am, but that does not mean they did not see me differently. I spent a lot of time after they found out repressing myself, making sure I did little to remind them that I am not solely human."

"You know me better than that," Jinx argues, her voice considerably softer than her previous statement.

Suddenly, her emotional repression when they were younger, and even when they had talked in the Angelique, makes a lot more sense to the hex caster.

That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, for more than one reason.

"I do," Raven agrees. "I… was raised in rejection. What my father was made the people of Azarath see me as an abomination, and I was raised in a temple where only a handful of the monks did not openly hate me whilst they all broke my mind and ensured I would be so in control of myself that he could never use me to bring their fears to fruition. I should have known better, but it is deeply engrained into my psyche, Jinx."

She isn't expecting the hex caster to pull her into a hunch and into her arms, but when she does, Raven immediately presses into the warm, comfortable embrace.

"If it's any consolation, when he attempted to take the Earth, I killed him. The others are not the only ones who were not fans of his work."

Snorting, Jinx presses a kiss to her forehead before allowing her to return to her upright position once more.

"Ya' weren't kiddin' about the extra-dimensional weirdness."

"I was not," Raven agrees, her worry over what question can reopen old wounds next rising in a wave.

Jinx's growing nervousness does not improve things.

"What didn't you tell me about the Church of Blood, and Sebastian?"

"I told you when we first began conversing that my legal name here is Rachel Roth, and that my mother's name was Angela Roth. That is not a cover story. Were I born on Earth, that would have been my name, instead of the single names of inhabitants of Azarath. She was a member of the Church."

The geas begins to burn in her mind as she takes a pause to collect herself.

"She was part of it for about a year, during which time their  _god_  came to them. They called him Skaath, thought him an incarnation of the First of the Fallen. Fools even gave Trigon free opportunity to walk this planet, if only for a few hours. Unfortunately, they were enough for him to rape my mother in the plans of giving birth to a sire, a  _gem_ , which could act as a portal to give him access to here."

Jinx gasps at that, her eyes widening in horror as pain becomes clear across the woman's face.

"Sebastian is a successor of the Church. It is no surprise that he knows all of the details. It's also why he thinks me so  _valuable_. Half-demon child to their god, any child I bore him would surely have incredible potential… That was why what happened happened in Gotham. I was raised by pacifists, but nothing has made me hate as that man and the abomination that his family started has made me hate."

"If it had been just you, would you have killed him?" Jinx asks, no judgment present in her voice or her mind.

"Possibly. At any rate, I certainly would have allowed him to fight for his survival by not healing his severed artery. We couldn't hurt him, not really. So I decided to let Rage, the part of me that hosts my truly demonic aspects, have some freedom from the leash I keep her on. Unfortunately, she used the distraction Sebastian's goading and mockery caused to choke me with it, and far more of that side of me got out than ever should have been able."

A thought occurs to Raven, and a small smile curves her lips.

"You saved me then, too. Without your fear, and your concern, I would not have awoken. I would have come back to myself much more slowly, and it would have been too late… I likely would have hated myself, both for being weak enough to kill out of petty anger and enough to let Sebastian get me to that point."

She presses another kiss to her girlfriend's lips, a blush creeping along both their faces.

"Thank you twice over, Jinx."

"It's what I do. I'm just that awesome," Jinx muses with a shrug, though her eyes give away the things she's too embarrassed to voice.

"Indeed. This is… far less terrible and much more freeing than I had thought it would be," the psychic admits.

"Well, then, I imagine the horrors are over with. So… what did Psimon do to you? It looked painful, and made you change like with Sebastian. If you don't want to tell me the details, if it's too personal-"

"He should not have been capable of doing what he did. That man originally gained his powers from a deal brokered with my father in the process of his research as a doctor. He should have lost those powers with Trigon's demise," Raven interrupts, airing a thought that bothers her greatly.

"Maybe it was a one-way thing?" Jinx offers with a shrug.

"Not from what I understand. With my father's defeat, his powers should have gone with him. I may have to look into it, see if I misunderstood something. He has become notably stronger since he was frozen."

"So he really did go out of his way to avoid you back then?"

"More or less. He helped contain me, but when that was done, he disappeared. I'm sure hoping I didn't know who he was so I couldn't turn my father's ire on him for assaulting me. Apparently he learned of his defeat and the lack of love lost between the two of us since that time."

"So, I mean, how'd he manage to get you? One minute I'm knocked flat on my ass and the next, you… Raven, please tell me him getting me by surprise wasn't enough to make an opportunity for him."

Raven visibly winces as the geas presses down on her mind, destroying the notion of anything but honesty.

"He hit you. You, being a metahuman and in general strong, would likely not have been too damaged by a blunt force trauma like that… All the same, it worried me, and he used the distraction. Afterwards was entirely on my own weakness…"

Raven's gaze goes distant, and Jinx forgets her guilt while worrying for what other horrors her curiosity is going to force her girlfriend to relive.

"He… He raised something from my subconscious. A fear, which is also engrained into me. It existed before, but Sebastian raised it largely into my mind. I am afraid of what consequences would come, if I were to ever lose control completely to my demon. He used it against me."

Her gaze locks on Jinx once again, a strange warmth showing in her gaze.

"It would have broken me. At least, at the rate it was going. As of late, I've undoubtedly been letting her have more control than I ever should have, without taking steps along with it… Had you not been there shouting, I likely would have become convinced it was reality rather than illusion. And before you ask,  _please_ , don't ask for details."

Jinx nods, the almost-begging tone enough to cull her curiosity.

"It's no big deal. What would it say about me as a person if I just stood there while my girlfriend's hurting?"

A smile spreads across Raven's face, a blush peppering her cheeks.

"It  _is_  a big deal, Jinx. If the Titans had been there, they likely would have feared my transformation, and would have left me to deal with it on my own. Although Richard might actually have  _helped me_  right into a prison," she adds with a glare, not realizing she's voiced the thought. "Admittedly, Starfire and Cyborg would have been equally concerned for me, but they would not have interfered. It is usually the way I prefer to handle things with them, and it is a mutual distancing from when we were young… but in that instance, it would not have gone over well."

Jinx pulls her once more into her embrace, laying a chaste kiss on her cheek.

"I must just be a very attentive girlfriend," she laughs.

"Yes, that must be it," Raven deadpans. "Would that make me a terrible girlfriend for holding this all back from you this whole time?"

"It's not like you've been lying to me. After what you've told me in just the last…"

Her gaze moves to a clock nearby, a small gasp sounding.

"-a lot less minutes than it feels like, I can completely understand why you wouldn't want to bring all this up out of the blue," she continues. "'s it okay if I have a few more questions?"

"I'd think we're past the point of needing to ask permission. I can't really tell you anything that'll scare you off if the whole scion to a hell-dimension didn't send you running for an anti-demon book."

"Alright, then. So, from what I'm gettin', the whole red skin and eyes and that weird special effect voice you do comes out when you're going through a lot of emotional stress, right?"

"It is, though only on three occasions, the other being the  _incident_  that led to Dr. Light's stories. I usually have more control. Or I  _did_ , anyway."

"So, is that why you did the whole toneless, cold Goth routine when you were younger? To keep a handle on it?"

"The monks at the Tower of Azar, where I was raised, kept watch over me after my mother was given sanctuary and gave birth to me. When I said they broke my mind, I meant that literally. Through years of work, using the power of the goddess Azar to help them, they fractured my psyche at a young age and made it so emotions and parts of my nature would separate from me as they arose. The copy of me you've met, in Nevermore? She is one of them."

"They… How could they do that to someone?" Jinx demands, anger pulsing through her.

"Azarath is a different place from Earth. Their logic was that if I could not be a being with all of me together, my demonic nature included, I would not lose to my nature and turn into another Trigon. They weren't entirely wrong, either… But as a consequence, I grew up being afraid of expressing, or even  _feeling_ , my emotions."

"That why you were always meditatin', back when I was with the Titans? I mean, I wasn't there for long, but that seemed to be what people always said when you weren't joining us for events."

"In part, yes. Some of that can just be chalked up to habit from being raised in a temple, though," Raven adds with a small smile. "I had, over time, learned to fully control my emotions, so meditation became less and less necessary and moreso something to fill time with."

" _Had_. As in, something changed," Jinx points out.

"Yes,  _had_ … An unexpected change started, roughly… four months ago at this point. Elements were added to my life that threw off my internal balance, and as I began more and more enjoying the emotions that the elements brought to me, my monitoring began to slip. The consequences of the rendezvous we've shared, which I mentioned after the first incident in Gotham, Jinx."

Jinx's heart stutters at that, her mind replaying the last sentence repeatedly.

"Wait, you're sayin' that I'm causing you to-"

"It is an all-or-nothing deal. I cannot accept the lighter emotions you cause me to experience without also accepting the much darker which arise with them," Raven interrupts, cutting off her train of thought before it's vocalized.

"But still, if you started living your worst fear because a' me-"

"I said element _s_ , Jinx. Much as I'm sure we would both enjoy it, my mental wellbeing does not revolve around you. You raised the light in my mind, which also uncaged the dark. Zatanna and Richard, though, are what truly made the darkness rise as an unstoppable beast in my mind. Especially with my oh-so-lovely discovery which led to my five minute report taking almost half an hour."

Something in her tone puts Jinx on edge, unexpected anger pain sending a quiver through her voice.

"What happened?"

"Richard has made a grave error. How do you think Gizmo would like free reign on the Titan mainframe?"

"He'd probably give up some of his toys for it. Rae, what happened?"

"Richard has  _plans_  in place, to disable every single member of the Titans. I understand that Batman has much the same contingencies in place for the Justice League, however Richard is nowhere near as patient and capable of forethought as his mentor, and given his recent behavior, I cannot risk what he may do with those plans."

"Wait, you mean he can just take out any Titan on a whim?  _Man_  am I glad that his info is way outdated on me," Jinx mutters.

"He is ever his masters' student. What I saw were brutal but undoubtedly effective plans, so while I may not have liked it, I would have understood his point of view on it… What he has planned for me is something beyond. It is not easy to disable me when I'm in a poor state of mind, and I recognize this fact. There  _should_  be plans to kill me if I ever turn on my principles. What he has planned is nothing but cruel, and I cannot allow it to be done. Killing me would be one thing. He plans to cage me, bind me, and make me a stunted vegetable for the rest of my life."

Anger suddenly blossoms in Jinx, more than matching her girlfriend's.

"I'm sorry for making you feel guilty, at all, for pushing the q and a session on you, if I did, Rae. If that's how your  _friends_  treat you-"

"Not friends. Zatanna and Richard," Raven interrupts.

Shaking her head violently, she leans further into the embrace and presses a much more impassioned kiss onto her lips, only separating when moans begin to sound in the air.

"It was well-deserved concern. I should've told you these things before Psimon forced my hand and threw you into shock at what you saw."

"I won't let him get his hands on you," Jinx swears, her pink eyes glowing angrily.

A smile breaks across Raven's face, and she moves in for yet another kiss.

"I have a plan on dealing with it. I'm sure Gizmo will enjoy the opportunity to destroy his contingencies, as both your and his names were there, too. But first there is something else I must do."

"Any help you want, I'll get it. Steel won't like the idea of possible assets put in danger on bird-brain's paranoia," Jinx intones through grit teeth. "You want me to ask him for a hit?"

"Unnecessary, and a waste of resources, though I do appreciate it. And I may call in a favor not dissimilar, depending on how my deliberations end up. But for right now, the first thing I need to take care of is internal. I've lost control twice in a matter of barely a full month. As I am, it will continue happening more and more, especially with some thoughts I had on who may be behind the thefts, who may be involved, and why."

She hadn't meant to reveal the last part, but as soon as it's out, she knows that it isn't a mistake. Jinx has more than earned her trust, and only her uncertainty on her still-forming recent thoughts on the robberies keeps the rest from leaving her.

"Psimon and Brother Blood will not be the last powerful psychics and mages we'll come across, of that I'm certain," she continues. "So I'm going to cut the problem off at the head, where I should have acted years ago. I'm going to undo what the monks did to my mind, and in doing so, I will likely become truly whole, not just a vessel for the avatars in my mind or Trigon's damned key. Not a human, not an Azarathian, not a demon, for the first time I might actually know who I am as just Raven."

Jinx tightens her hold on the woman, the idea terrifying and intriguing her simultaneously.

"And so we get to the end result of our conversation, something you convinced me I was correct in deciding with the more answers I gave and the lack of horror or hate that took place with each of them. I have a request, and it is an unfair one."

"I'll help you in any way I can," Jinx says, something warm stirring in the pit of her stomach and sending pleasant shivers through her.

"I need someone to keep vigil over me while I'm in Nevermore. I will be more vulnerable in there than I have been since I was first separated, and given Nightwing's actions, and Zatanna's powers and aggression, I cannot simply do this in my room. More, I will likely release a lot of power, whether through merging or dying, and if I do, the many magical villains we have not been as subtle as we should have been hunting down may very well take notice and come looking. I know what kind of pressure this request puts on you-"

"Rae, if you think I'm the person who'd be best for keeping you safe, I will protect you with everything I've got," Jinx interrupts.

Jinx's heart beats faster as the fact that Raven trusts her very bared soul to be protected by her settles in. The notion touches her monumentally, and she finds herself fighting tears of strange origin, a vague guess to what's happening taking root.

She initiates the kiss this time, a much gentler kiss than she remembers experiencing with the empath in their plethora shared.

"Only you, Nicole," Raven murmurs into the kiss, several stray tears slipping free...  
 ****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

First of the Fallen is basically Satan in the DC comics, but not quite. More on that later.

This was by far the most interesting chapter for me to write thus far. I debated for quite a while on how the conversation would go, and what the results would be. It came out a tad melodramatic for my original intentions, but I'm glad to say I definitely like the end result, as I hope you all do as well. Be sure to let me know, though. See you next time!


	22. Inner Demons

#  XXI. Inner Demons

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"Ya' know, I hate that name a lot less when you say it," Jinx muses. "Still, I prefer Jinx."

"And moment ruined," Raven deadpans. "Shall we get the fun underway?"

At her girlfriend's nod, the psychic's hand slides through a portal, quickly returning with her mirror.

"If you could work a little bit of your magic so luck's in my favor, it certainly wouldn't hurt."

She quickly presses another kiss to Jinx's lips before sitting in a lotus position on the floor.

And then her hand is on the mirror.

A flash of black light flares up from the glass, and Raven's body goes limp, her eyes glowing pure white…  
 *********************

Raven takes form in a large, rocky clearing.

Around the table, centered in the clearing, sits seven copies of herself, leaving just enough room in the circle for herself.

"Merging is a necessity," Wisdom states as she takes a seat. "We're all in agreement over that. You've been incomplete for too long, and we've undoubtedly become discordant as time has dragged on. It's the specifics that must be discussed."

Raven's eyebrow raises in question, staring at her yellow clone.

"You believe it would be easy. Perhaps like when we simply joined with you when facing Rage down when she was still under Father's influence."

" _ **Which would not have happened had she not kept me so strongly repressed as to essentially be nonexistent when his power entered me**_ ," her red self growls.

"Regardless, you are not correct in your assumption," Wisdom continues without missing a beat. "A permanent merge is not simply letting our powers join, it is facing and accepting every piece of your shattered soul."

Raven shrugs, hoping Jinx took her advice when she went into her trance.

"There isn't exactly a choice here. Shall we get this under way?"

With a nod, the clones disappear in smoke, their presences felt in all parts of her mind.

"You can choose the order, or have us choose for you. This is not an action you can go partially through," Wisdom states before she, too, disappears.

Raven sits silently at the abandoned table, mind turning her options over repeatedly.

Finally, she decides on dealing with her less potent emotions first as the best option.

As soon as she rises to head to her destination, two of her mirror selves appear.

They are garbed in pink and purple, and both wear a large and similar smile. The differences in their smiles, though, is clear, the purple Raven not unintentionally reminding her of Jinx.

Raven feels a blush creep across her as the women both move to her side, leaning heavily on her and grinning goofily at her.

"I'm not surprised. Not like it'd be hard to deal with what you already know," the purple Raven, Love, states with a sultry whisper.

"Good to see you aren't denying us, finally," the pink clone, Happiness, chirps.

The loud voice causes a spike of pain in Raven's mind, a heatless glare focusing on the loud woman.

"So, let's talk about Jinx. What do you think of her?" Love asks with a smile.

"The best thing that's happened to me," Raven shrugs, surprising them both with her honesty. "What? We're in my head. You are why I think that way."

"Yeah, but you're always putting on that gloomy mask, even with us in here," Happiness states, as if afraid to hear the statement taken back.

"I told her she's what brought my light out," Raven deadpans. "I was being serious. She's able to make me…  _happy_ … even while being serious enough to converse with me on an even level and not come out of it poorly."

"And…?" Love prompts, her eyes glowing slightly purple as her smile grows.

"And she made no judgments. She was rightfully scared when I…  _we_ … told her everything just now, and she's currently outside my body, keeping watch over me while I am utterly vulnerable… Outside of what will hopefully happen once this whole thing is over, I'm more of myself with her than with anyone, even if I trust my life to Koriand'r and Victor."

"And Garfield," Happiness interrupts with a giggle.

"In theory," Raven responds with a blush.

"Alright, I'm good. How 'bout you?" Happiness asks pointedly at Love.

The purple incarnation simply nods, both women stepping back.

"You'd better try your hardest to keep Jinx in your life. As it's the same for you, she's also the best thing that's happened for  _us_ ," Happiness says with a grin, throwing her arm over Love's shoulder.

Raven nods in agreement, and the two vanish in a burst of colored light.

A strange, throbbing sensation floods the psychic's brain, and she watches in fascination as her robe cycles through colors, pink and purple quickly making the fabric a light mauve color.

" _I really need to talk, seriously, with her about this,"_  she muses internally as the emotions take hold.

What was subconsciously driven becomes fully accepted, and she realizes that she will not be able to keep what the realization causes in her bottled.

Needing something to temper the giddy feelings bubbling in her, she materializes in an ancient library.

"Best to take me on to better deal with the more negative aspects of your soul. As expected," Wisdom states without looking up from her book.

"You did not say I would lose my clarity once started," Raven accuses with a glare, the giddy emotions overpowering her mind.

"You did not ask. I did not know. Regardless, I'll keep this short. What are your intentions with the rest of the objects?"

"I'll continue as I have been" Raven responds. "The museums still get their pretty pieces of history to gawk at, and the risk of the exact things I fear happening from their capture will no longer be present."

"Very well. And your containment plan? Without Rage, your demonic aspect will not be influenced by their power corrupting Nevermore, but they will still be in your mind. The evils that they have been formed from and continue to be used for since will continue poisoning you."

"Jinx and I will work something out. I'm sure between the two of us, and Gizmo's technology, we can come up with something almost as effective."

Wisdom's eyes close in thought, a frown curling her lips.

"Alright. This makes sense."

Her eyes open to reveal a flare of yellow, and when Raven's sight returns, she feels her logic returning to compliment the happiness flowing through her brain. Her robe once again transforms, becoming a light shade of brown now.

Before she can ponder the next course of action, a green shadow sweeps past her vision.

Bravery takes a seat on top of a large bookshelf, glaring down at her.

"What're you gonna' do about Richard and Zatanna?" she demands.

Surprisingly, another clone takes form, a grey-cloaked Raven crouching low underneath Bravery against the bookshelf.

"S-S-Sorry… I f-figured y-you'd want to g-get me over with n-next, and I ag-agree with Bravery," Timidity stutters, her eyes locked on the ground.

"You're an odd and unexpected pair," Raven remarks. "As for how I will  _deal_ …"

Raven's eyes close in thought, contemplating on more than just her immediate plan of action regarding the vile pair.

"I don't know what it means for my future," she finally sighs. "I will destroy his plans, but he is intelligent. If I do not go about it right, he can find another way to enact his heinous idea, especially with that two-faced witch whispering in his ear."

Her anger surprises even her, quickly calming when Timidity seems to shrink inside her cloak.

"I cannot continue as a Titan, not after discovering that. Even were I to decide to remain on as an individual member, like Argent or Jericho, he would hound me. Someone capable of such plans is not a leader I will ever follow. Apparently, my forgiveness of Zatanna was misplaced, as well, since she is in no way different than I had originally assumed."

"All great. What are you going to  _do_?" Bravery presses.

"Jinx made an offer long ago. Perhaps a new occupation, not bound to petty issues when there are real evils in the world, is in order."

She doesn't miss Bravery's clear enjoyment of the statement, nor the rambling of Rage's, either.

"Proactive, effective, and violent, without always walking on eggshells around people who're secretly terrified of what you can do. I like it," Bravery declares as she hops to the ground.

Unexpectedly, she pulls Raven into a hug, and her body quickly glows with green energy.

When the glow vanishes, her cloak is darker yet.

She notices with a smile that her muscles are visibly enlarged from her inner warrior's merge. Matching the change, she feels her self-confidence swell.

The idea of fighting Nightwing no longer seems daunting.

" _If he pushes, I_ will _retaliate,"_  she muses.

"Wh-What're you g-going to do ab-about the relics' col-collection?" Timidity asks, quickly bringing her down under her influence.

Raven slowly moves to kneel in front of her fear, her expression soft.

"I treated you almost as horribly as I did Rage in my self-restraint," she muses. "What would you suggest I do?"

Timidity's eyes widen in shock, her body coming out from its pseudo-shell.

"I ca-can't answer that. The result is ob-obvious. With-Without the Titans' support… even Jinx's v _-very_  benef-ficial existence w-won't be able to s-save the whole pl-planet," she stutters, nearly in tears.

"The Titans are not the issue," Raven reasons. "Richard will not be a factor. Victor, Kori, and Garfield would help, as undoubtedly would other Titans. Were I to give them proof of my suspicions, I'm sure that Dr. Fate could even convince the Justice League to help. And I am not as weak as I was when first Trigon used me for his goals. Something lesser will be of little consequence."

"Y-You shou-shouldn't pretend to b-be so s-sure. N-Not with m-me," she scolds.

"I will not ignore what the instincts coming from your side of my soul tell me. But I cannot be too afraid to act, either," Raven responds.

Her eyes widen in absolute shock when the grey avatar repeats Bravery's actions, pulling her into another hug, if much less enthusiastic and much more cautious.

"T-Try to ma-make more friends. J-Jinx's be-been good for-for me too," she whispers.

Slowly, her body dissolves in grey smoke, the fumes slithering in Raven's nose and mouth.

As her cloak turns almost a black color, she rises from her kneeling position.

Two presences remaining in her mind, Raven decides to put the undoubtedly worst for last.

She appears in what appears to be a clone of her room in the Tower.

A copy of herself with a light blue cloak sits on the duplicate of her bed. A self-assured smirk colors her features, and she simply stares at Raven as she approaches.

"Been a while, Raven."

"Pride," she deadpans.

"It's about time you grew up from thinking you're the big bad monster Dick seems to believe you to be."

"Indeed. And what question does my ego have for me?"

"If I join you, will you stop being so damn piteous?" Pride growls. "You possess a lot of power. You should damn well start using it, and unlike Bravery's confidence, I am everything that truly makes up what makes you not wither in fear of what you can do. If I join you, do you believe you'll be able to accept everything your ego means once fully within you?"

"I will keep my head up in the face of those who would mock or damn me, if that's what you're looking for, Pride. Frankly, as I'm sure you're aware, your exhaustion with this mentality the monks buried into my mind, that my very blood makes me paradoxically inferior and a threat both, is my own."

"Jinx alone has proven your clutching to the mentality is misplaced," Pride adds.

"She has. I have no intention of basing my opinions of self on the thoughts of others. It's time I grew up," Raven remarks.

Pride rises to her feet, a determined expression changing how her smirk appears.

"You're damn right. It's about time you get some actual happiness, and you're going to have to make it for yourself. I like Jinx. But don't become dependent on her, like you have been with both breakdowns now, and with dealing with Richard. She's earned to be treated as an equal, not a crutch for you to lean on."

"That is… surprising," Raven admits, eyes wide at her ego's words.

"She's fought right with us for months now, and what power you held back from her was even less than what you held back with your friends and Richard. Like I said, my, and in extension  _your_  respect is damn-well earned."

With an acknowledging nod, Pride's body explodes into a cluster of large, blue ravens.

As soon as they fly into the psychic, her feet leave the ground, silver exploding from her eyes and mouth with her cloak following suit.

When her eyes open once more, she stands in Rage's domain, the volcanoes raging around them.

As she begins searching for her last piece, a hand wraps around her throat.

She gasps as she's lifted from the ground, coming face-to-face with her inner demon, in every sense of the term.

Visions of her nightmare flare up in Raven's mind, and with a growl she dispels it, kicking the red-skinned woman in the chin.

As she tumbles backward, the psychic floats back to the ground, brushing at imaginary dust.

"Deserved, but not appreciated. Don't try it again," Raven warns.

" _ **Well, you might actually be ready for me,**_ " Rage laughs, quickly rising to her feet. " _ **You evaded Bravery's question. What will you**_ do _ **to Richard Grayson and Zatanna Zatarra for their betrayals? Or to those who would mock your lineage or power, as Doctor Simon or Sebastian Blood?**_ "

"I can't go around killing everyone who pisses me off, Rage-"

" _ **Which is something you should have learned long ago would be something I acknowledge,**_ " Rage snarls, the ground rumbling beneath her. " _ **You treat me still as something to be suppressed and avoided-**_ "

"I don't," Raven interrupts. "I… did. For the longest time, you were the best chance Trigon had at getting access to my mind and using me. I did not treat you fairly, and I understand that, but if I had really thought that, I would not have called on your help more than once, much less having let you have free roam as the others have of your own and their domains once you were free of the influence. But still, I-"

" _ **Engrained, I know. You certainly said it to Jinx enough. But the thing that you still,**_ right now _,_ _ **are refusing to accept is that your actions are your own. The monks, the Justice League, and the Titans' actions guided you, but**_ you  _ **make yet the decision to treat me as a threat.**_ "

Tears form in Raven's eyes, meeting the pure rage in her demon's four eyes and knowing that she is its cause, and that its cause is justified.

Something in the thought causes a palpable shift in her mind, something coming free as if it had been trapped for a long time.

A sharp pain forms in her head, spots forming in her vision.

Shaking it off, she approaches Rage, showing no fear.

"I will make him pay for his betrayal," she intones. "At present, I will have Gizmo hack into their system and destroy his damned plans. Perhaps use it against his leadership as leverage. The League tolerates Batman's actions because he is skilled enough to more than make up for them. They will not tolerate Richard's. And if he, or Zatanna, or both for that matter, try to enact their treachery regardless, I will  _crush_ them."

The statement seems to make the volcanoes quiet, something stirring in Rage's gaze.

"Their _ **system. Not**_ our _ **system. I like that**_."

A smile spreads across Rage's lips, the expression not sending the expected terror through Raven.

" _ **And what of your demonic blood, and the power it grants you? Will you continue denying it, even as you accept every single solitary other facet of yourself, including the Pride which fueled it almost as much as I?**_ " Rage demands.

"I won't. Integration has changed my outlook, somewhat," Raven states, thinking aloud. "The demon is also me. Just as you were all also me. I cannot be whole while denying that part of me that comes with you joining."

" _ **But…?**_ " Rage prompts, glaring at her.

"But I'm scared. No, that's like saying the ocean has water. I am terrified. Terrified of indulging too much of my nature, of becoming another Trigon. The powers are doubtless incredible, but… Trigon was emotionless.  _Really_ , truly emotionless. What if that's just part of demon nature?"

" _ **You assume much for a learned woman. He was the embodiment of emotions from Azarath.**_ Negative  _ **emotions, assuredly, but emotions nonetheless. He was not a demon. He was a manifestation. And your other half is human, the side you clearly align yourself with."**_

"I know. It's a stupid fear. But Rage, I couldn't deal with it if what Psimon ripped out of my head came to pass. My friends, the innocents, Jinx, all of them, wiped out with a thought… that is an idea that is soul-shatteringly terrifying."

" _ **I'd have thought Pride would give you better assurance in yourself**_ ," Rage sneers.

"She did. All of them did. You will, too. But the fear is not unfounded. However, in my recent clarity, as I said, I'm looking at things from a new perspective. It  _is_  a part of my nature. If I can control it, rather than fighting against it, the results should not be so traumatic. If I fully accept everything that Father's blood means, then I will be more prepared. Better-suited for protecting what and who I love."

" _ **Then the hesitation?**_ " Rage snarls, making a vague 'get on with it' hand gesture.

"I'm uncertain what risks the integration could cause. Will I still look like me? Talk like me?  _Think_  like me? I'm not backing down, but it's enough uncertainty to worry me. But I can't deny what it will grant me. My fear in part comes from what happened when I suppressed it, and you, to the point of snapping. If I become truly whole, I can't imagine that the issue will be present anymore."

Rage stares silently at her for a small eternity, seeming to weigh her entire existence in her gaze.

" _ **You had better find a way to show**_ everyone _ **what is yours, and that what is yours is off-limits to any who wish to remain living,**_ " she finally growls.

In an explosion of red, fiery light, a mountainous raven with four eyes and made completely of the red light takes form.

With a screech that sends the ground atremble, it launches through the air between them.

It meets the gem in her chakra, and then Raven is standing once more in the clearing with the round table.

The sky above Nevermore shifts, looking like the long-gone Azarathian skies.

Her cloak is a pure, pristine white, and as she stands it seems to cast beams of light from her.

A serene smile flickers across her expression, the change already making itself known as her completeness settles in.

" _For the first time since my birth, I am_ me," she muses, a giddy laugh sounding even as tears fall.

The full weight of her new emotions quickly floods her mind, new understanding and perspectives on all her actions and thoughts asserting themselves and becoming one unified whole.

Her eyes open to the outside world, the smile showing no signs of leaving her.

As she feels her new senses taking the world in, Jinx's emotions reach her.

It is a bizarre cocktail, fear, awe, concern, amusement, and another, softer emotion that she can only now guess at, all working together in a strange harmony.

It is that softer emotion that brings her own to be calmed, a cautious optimism of what came next taking root...  
 *********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

While in the cartoon, and in the comics, Raven also has Emoticlones (I didn't think this was actually a name, but I'm trusting the Titans Wiki on this for reference) of Sloth (Brown) and Rudeness (Orange), I admit I couldn't think of a benefit of them joining, nor could I think of what those sides of her would wish for, so I decided for the sake of convenience to the story that those things (which I argue are not emotions to begin with) didn't exist. Instead, I substituted Rude (the snarky emotion) for Pride, which is similar, considered an actual emotion, and is also the Deadly Sin that Raven represents of her brothers as Trigon's children. I also switched Knowledge for Wisdom, because I feel Wisdom is deeper than just knowledge, which matches the personality I gave her.

Rage's manner of speech actually comes from recently re-reading the Hollows book series by Kim Harrison. I like the idea of demons getting very personal about those they deal with.

Hope you've been thoroughly enjoying yourselves reading as I have writing thus far. Let me know, either way. See you next time!


	23. Whole

#  XXII. Whole

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven's eyes slowly move to her girlfriend.

Jinx stands in a crouch barely an inch away from her, her face flushed bright red.

A small, tentative smile curves her lips, and in her eyes lays a mixture of warmth and concern.

Raven feels a strange tickling on her back, and with a small amount of dread, reaches her hand back to find its source.

A groan leaves her as her fingers move through her hair, the previous pixie cut giving way to mid-back, thick waves.

A wince forms as something scratches her neck, and she brings her hand in front of her face to marvel at her nails.

They are each longer than their trimmed former selves, ending in sharp, hooked ends.

As Raven takes their appearance in, her gaze moves to look at her new skin.

She is noticeably redder, making her grey colorization almost Caucasian.

As soon as she notices the color, it leeches away, leaving her to her former color, which no longer causes her despair.

Her cloak, wrapped tightly around her body, is the same pure white as it had been in Nevermore.

She can tell from the reflection in Jinx's bright eyes that blood-red specks are now in her purple gaze, and she knows that it is a more permanent change than her hair or nails are.

Previously, these things would all have sent her into a tailspin into terror, her mind quickly working to fight against the change and repress her nature.

Now, though, the shift in her personality is firm, and she no longer sees it as a curse.

Slowly, she rises from her seated position, Jinx rising with her.

She gently grasps her hands, mindful of her temporary claws, and leads her over to the couch.

Jinx stares in silent awe at her the entire time, sitting down without looking anywhere else.

"You look amazing… It's different, from before," she finally says, breaking the silence.

"It is, and thank you, Jinx. How long was I predisposed?"

"About… five, six minutes, I'd guess. I'm gonna' guess that was like two hours in there, though."

"More or less… Tell me, what caused your various emotions permeating the air? A lot must have happened in five or six minutes for all that to show up. It's making me very curious," Raven states, her voice a lower and sultrier tone than she remembers having.

Raven hopes that the warmth radiating from the woman, the one still rising from Jinx's mind and growing stronger in her own, will remain the last to be discussed.

Jinx leans against her side, staring at her as if not entirely sure what's changed, but knowing that the change is for the better.

"Well, here's the quick recap. I don't know what was goin' on in your head, but it must've been really interesting. So, you go into your trance, and you're just sitting there for a minute or two. Nothing's happening. Then, all of a sudden, your cape turned bright, bubblegum pink," she says, raising the neon ends of her hair for comparison.

"So that happened out here as well?" Raven asks, a smile forming.

"Uh-huh. So, your cape changes, then the most  _adorable_ grin showed up. I didn't even know you could make an expression like that. But I definitely want to see more of it," she adds, laughing at Raven's blush.

"I don't do  _adorable_ ," Raven mumbles, her face feeling like it's on fire.

"Gonna' have to disagree with you. Shame, too. Ya' only had it for, like, ten seconds. Then you turned bright purple, and that smile changed. You looked like you were going to eat me, and not in any way I would protest. Seriously, that look could make me melt. Gonna' have to try to bring that out again," the meta adds, her own blush taking hold.

"I didn't…  _do_  anything while not in control of myself, did I?" the psychic asks, slight worry mingling with her embarrassment and amusement.

"No. Damn shame, too," Jinx mutters. "You turned yellow and green, too, but mostly, you didn't seem to change too much. There was this huge grin when you went green, looked like you were ready to kick serious ass, but that was gone in a second."

"Grey next?" Raven guessed.

"Yeah," she responds, her expression saddening. "You were shiverin' and crying, and it was breakin' my heart to see. I tried to get to you, but those freaky nightmare hentai tentacles you sometimes use showed up and kept me away from you. I was a little freaked when they wrapped around me like they were  _huggin'_  me, though."

Raven remembers Timidity's fear, wondering if it had been for more than just their own benefits.

Jinx leans forward and kisses her, snapping her out of her contemplation as the warmth coats her mind entirely.

"Don't scare me like that again. I thought you were havin' a breakdown, or somethin'," she says as she breaks away.

Raven smiles, cupping her girlfriend's cheek and making sure not to scratch her.

" _Priority one when this is over,"_  Raven muses.

"I will try not to. Sorry I scared you. So what happened next? It's fascinating, to think that I did not just sit there frozen while I was getting the merge done."

"It was fascinating to watch," Jinx adds with a grin. "So, I thought the whole thing was over when you turned blue, like usual… Then you turned red. I mean  _really_ red. Your skin, your eyes, your cape, hell, even your hair was practically glowing from it. You were gasping and wheezing for air."

"I had a more difficult time taking my Rage in," Raven offers.

"Yeah, I could tell. I just sat down at your side in case you needed me, because I figured that if I risked interfering with the obvious worst part, I could seriously screw something up. Still, freaky. Then you changed, again."

Raven inquisitively gestures to herself, an eyebrow raised.

"Exactly. Your hair started to grow, like someone pressed fast forward a few dozen times."

Her Cheshire smile forms, and she runs her hand through Raven's long tresses.

"Silky. I can get used to that," she muses, laughing when Raven's blush darkens.

"Then I can't really complain about it, too much. Don't get too used to this, though, I like my hair short," the psychic adds with a smile of her own.

"Pity. It'd make for a great handhold while… er, anyway, you started bulking up. You weren't exactly scrawny before, but now, ya' look like you could probably hold your own with yer' bare hands against Cyborg."

Raven's eyes move down, widening in surprise as she realizes that she has, in fact, grown considerably in her arm's musculature.

The muscles are still toned and not enough to make her appear as a bodybuilder, but they are certainly significantly more powerful in appearance than earlier.

"We'll have to see if  _all_ your muscles got firmer later," Jinx laughs, brushing her hand down the woman's hip suggestively.

"So was your awe merely from me getting larger?" Raven prompts with a throatier voice.

"You had four eyes again, then you went back to two, like a wave ran through your head. It was kinda' weird. And there're the talons, too. The whole deal was kinda' amazing. So, if that's what  _I_  saw, I can't even guess what you went through."

Her body turns to fully face Raven, staring intently at her.

"How're you feeling?"

Raven takes mental stock of herself, fully analyzing her new self. A smile curls across her lips as she finds herself enjoying what she finds, and slowly a laugh bubbles up to the surface.

She quickly leans forward, gripping the meta's head on both sides and pulling her in for a searing kiss, both of them breathless when it eventually breaks apart.

"I feel more amazing than words can describe," she laughs. "Like you guessed, I went through a lot within my mind, but I've realized things. Jinx, I'm not afraid to feel anymore," she laughs again.

Grinning, Jinx pulls her into her arms, laying her lips along her face a large number of times before they kiss once more.

"I wanna' hear you laugh more," she finally gasps, pulling away with spots appearing in her sight.

"That may very well happen."

Raven's gaze softens, and one of her hands slides free from Jinx's neck to cup her cheek.

Her smile grows when Jinx closes her eyes and her head cradles into the touch, a small purr sounding in the back of her throat.

"One thing in particular sticks out in this new freedom, as well. It pertains to you."

Jinx tenses slightly, eyes locking with the psychic's while the warmth mixes with nervousness.

"There was surprising consensus in my mind. All of me is in favor of our relationship.  _Literally_  all of me," Raven soothes with a smile.

The meta relaxes somewhat, though the anxiousness doesn't leave her eyes, clearly knowing there's more.

"Two parts of me seemed to make a particularly strong case in our favor."

Jinx's hesitation is visible, her mind working fast.

"Which parts?" she finally asks.

Her nervousness vanishes as she seems to guess, her Cheshire's smile back in full force.

"So all of your selves likes me, huh? That's a lot of lovin'," she laughs.

Raven's own smile grows, her eyes showing humor that is lost on Jinx.

"In fact it is," she muses. "Quite literally. She and my sense of Happiness were what you saw when I was smiling in the beginning."

Jinx's mirth vanishes, a gasp sounding as she stares at her girlfriend.

The bluntness of her statement is shocking enough, but the statement she is bold about is enough to make the meta's mind not connect the dots for several seconds.

When she figures it out, she jumps atop Raven and plants a kiss that steals their breath on her lips.

She keeps going even as her vision begins to be dotted with black spots.

"I take it you approve?" Raven asks, pulling her into her arms.

"You have to ask?" Jinx asks. "I figured out a while ago that I want you in my life, in a way a lot more serious than just the good conversation and fantastic fucks. If you didn't say somethin' soon, I was going to."

She leans in to form another kiss, her emotions mixing heavily into it and sending Raven's newly empowered empathic abilities into overdrive.

"But c'mon, you're almost there. Say it," Jinx demands with a grin. "I wanna' hear you actually say it so I know we're on the same page."

Raven winds her hands around the meta's waist, sure her smile will be stuck on her face for a long time to come, if it goes away at all.

"I love you, Jinx. No more holding back anymore, you get all of me from hereon. And I'm not scared or worried to say it," she adds with another gleeful laugh.

"Then I'd say your whole merge thing is already an investment paying off," Jinx muses, still lightheaded as she brings more air into herself.

Raven uses her grip on Jinx's waist to turn her, leaning her head on her shoulder.

"I would say most definitely. I don't think I can go back to the Tower right now."

"I think I know of a place you could stay… Won't the asshole get suspicious?" Jinx asks, her good mood dampening as her anger from earlier returns.

"He will. I don't know what Zatanna told him when they left, but it won't be good. But I can't go back there until I'm ready. There are things I need to discuss with Gizmo, and safeguards to put in place so even if something goes horribly wrong, he won't put me in his cage. It is undoubtedly going to get ugly when I go back there."

"Then I'm staying with you until you go. And even then, if you want."

"I could certainly use the help, but I'll have to think on it. If I can, I'd like to deal with it peaceably… Well, as much as blackmail can be a peaceful resolution, anyways," Raven adds with a grimace.

"Ooh, you're  _totally_  joining the dark side," Jinx laughs.

"Dork."

"And ya' love it," the meta chimes with a laugh.

"Absolutely."

"There is something good to come from his stupidity, though, the way I'm lookin' at it now."

"Oh? Do share," Raven prompts with a raised eyebrow.

With an impressive display of athleticism, Jinx spins in her arms, her body pressing tightly against her as she comes to a stop facing her.

"Well, you can actually sleep until reasonable hours and won't need to go running in the morning, now."

"Point," Raven murmurs, a blush blossoming on her face as Jinx presses closer.

"And then there's the whole  _new you_  thing. I could get you to pant and moan before. I can't imagine what noises I can get from you now that you've got all your senses fully going," she adds with a grin.

Raven stares with her mouth open at her lover, the thoughts running through her head like a film quickly turning her entire face scarlet.

"Oh, thinking of something fun? Care to share?" Jinx asks, her voice lower and her breath puffing against the psychic's ear.

Raven shivers at the sensation, eyes glazing over in heat as Jinx, impossibly, presses even further into her embrace.

"Absolutely," she groans.

A portal opens up beneath their bodies, and Jinx squeals in surprise as they fall through the air and come bouncing down onto her bed.

"Let's see how good love confession sex is for getting our minds off serious stuff for a while, shall we?" Jinx gasps…  
 ***************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I have to say that I'm really out of my element on this chapter. Romance is not my genre, at all. So I'd like very much for your thoughts, readers. What did I and didn't I do well here? Do you like how it's written, or not? Enjoying the story as a whole, or are there things you have issues with? Hold nothing back, folks, and I'll see you next time!


	24. Confrontation

#  XXIII. Confrontation

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven awakens slowly, the warmth around her making a very persuasive argument in favor of just staying asleep.

The soreness permeating her entire body, though, gradually forces her to wakefulness.

A low purr sounds at her side, and she turns into her lover's arms with a smile.

Memories of the previous day move in a slideshow through her mind, her new sense of giddiness quickly returning.

Jinx presses closer to the psychic, the noises she makes bringing Raven's blush to blossom throughout her whole body.

Even in her drowsy state, a smile curves her lips as her gaze moves up Raven's body, making its way slowly up to the psychic's face.

Raven's head bends to push their lips together, the chaste gesture quickly turning more passionate as the meta wakes.

Jinx snakes her arm upwards, cupping her neck as she reluctantly pulls away.

"Careful. A girl could get used to that kinda' wakeup," she practically moans.

"And a girl could get used to waking you with it," Raven returns with a warm smile.

Jinx's smile grows as she notices something behind Raven.

"What's this? And when there's actual light outside, too! I could get used to that, too," she laughs.

At Raven's embarrassed frown, she quickly presses another kiss to her lips, instantly removing the expression.

"You're so cute when you blush," Jinx laughs. "I can definitely get used to  _that_ , too, hopefully a lot more in the foreseeable future."

Raven brushes her hand along the woman's spine, reveling in the shivers that overtake the meta's form.

"Go back to sleep, Jinx. Rest a bit more," she encourages, her heart beating faster at her lover's insinuation.

"Not a morning person. Good thing ta' know for the future."

"Go back to sleep, Jinx. Rest a bit more," she encourages, her heart beating faster at her lover's insinuation.

"'Kay."

With the lack of convincing needed, Raven laughs as Jinx's eyes slide back closed and she promptly begins snoring again.

A grumble making itself known, the psychic silently slips into a portal, taking her clothes with her as she floats without a sound into the kitchen, letting her lover rest a while longer…  
 *********************

Slowly, pink eyes begin opening to blearily take in the world outside.

She had not been wrong.

The sex before couldn't even compare to how amazing their lovemaking had been, the term much better fit for their newest development.

Jinx comes awake slowly, groaning as her body's various sorenesses and aches make themselves known.

The thought of their activities over the previous day brings her Cheshire smile to the meta's lips, though it quickly wanes when she takes notice of the lack of body pressed against her.

Her gaze becomes much clearer in an instant, looking around for Raven, before an amazing scent catches her attention.

Stomach grumbling, her sudden hunger leads her to her kitchen, and a very strange sight.

Raven moves around the kitchen, dressed in her leotard while her cloak is nowhere to be seen.

One thing Jinx had not expected was that the psychic could cook.

With how she expertly maneuvers something hidden by her body, that assumption quickly vanishes.

"When the day for the prophecy to happen came, I tried to distract myself by cooking, to get my mind off it all," Raven says in greeting. "It went terribly, and only Koriand'r could eat what I made when attempting to create pancakes. After all of the dust had settled and the Earth was once again whole, I decided to take some classes up on cooking. It turned out I could do quite well at it, given enough mistakes to learn from."

"I didn't make any noise," Jinx says as she takes a seat. "And I'm not going to complain about free food."

"It's your food, I'm just putting it to use," Raven argues, flipping something in her skillet. "And I'm getting used to everything, so I don't know if it'll go away, but I heard you the second you got out of bed."

Jinx's eyes widen, casting a glance back the way she came.

"That's on the other side of the apartment."

"Glad you know the geography of your apartment," Raven laughs, the sound sending a thrill through the meta.

"And you didn't go back to sleep when you told me to… why?" she grouses.

"Not all of us need to sleep until the day is half over," Raven taunts.

"I sleep perfectly normal. Everyone else needs to figure out nocturnal schedules are more efficient," the meta grumbles with a blush.

Raven laughs at her response, though she purely teases the tired meta.

She knows from some of her stories that some ops meant almost weeks at a time with barely any sleep to be had safely in between.

Her sleep habits while in Jump City make perfect sense.

That doesn't mean she can't have her fun, something that her new attributes seem to demand.

"I am sorry that my hunger won out against staying in your arms for another hour. Sadly, you seem to have burnt all my energy away. And I'll be needing as much as I can gather."

"Get used to it, babe, 'cause I'll be perfectly happy making you wake up burnt out all the time. Can't say I don't wish you had just left the damn clothes on the floor, though. I feel so naked."

"You are," Raven deadpans with a raised eyebrow.

"Exactly. And you're not," the meta responds with a grin. "How 'bout we fix that?"

"Eating first, fun after I've dealt with the bastard."

"Such a hard bargain. Fine, I guess I'll just have to wait… So, today's the day, huh?" Jinx inquires with a more serious expression, slowly making her way to stand behind her.

A shiver runs through the psychic's body as warm arms circle her waist, her smile growing as Jinx presses into her.

"Unfortunately. Any more delay, and they'll come looking. First, though, you sit down, and we enjoy breakfast. You're going to distract me and I don't want to burn our food."

"We could just eat out," Jinx laughs, a bright blush forming on both their faces. "Actually, if you're saying we could do that if I distract you-"

Raven spins in her arms, fast enough to make her gasp.

Her eyebrow rises and she cups Jinx's neck.

"Jinx, you're insatiable. I like that. But seriously, sit. I can ravish you after I'm not hungry for actual food."

Her tone gives none of the elation she truly feels away, and yet the psychic can tell that Jinx knows nonetheless.

Raven had not expected her confessions to end well, at all. That it had ended with the meta not only not afraid of her, but with the meta reciprocating her feelings was an utterly amazing result.

That she herself has no qualms letting her know just how much she's come to love her is an even greater joy, her giddiness slow at working its way from her system.

"No fun," Jinx grumbles as she moves to take a seat once more.

"Says the woman limping," Raven laughs.

"Speakin' of, what the hell'd I do wrong? You shouldn't be standin', either."

With a blank expression, Raven points downward. When Jinx's eyes finally make their way down her legs, a growl sounds.

"That just ain't fair," she grumbles, glaring at the inches of space between her lover's feet and the floor.

"As you've said before, I believe. It's actually really amazing. I don't even need much thought anymore, like I did before. I'm just hoping the claws don't grow back all the time, because I ended up having to use a knife to clip them."

Jinx's eyes widen in alarm at that, shooting to her feet as a twinge rips through her.

"You what?"

"Apparently my nails are no longer nails. Or, not simple enamel, anyways. You're lucky I have other talented areas, because you could've gotten seriously hurt."

"Oh, I know just how lucky I am," Jinx laughs as her face turns scarlet.

Raven sends whatever's on her skillet into another flip, and moments later, a timer rings.

Nodding, her soul-self flips the oven off while another carries the heated metal to two plates.

As she moves the plates to the table, she leans at Jinx's side with a grin.

"If it makes you feel better, I  _had_ to levitate at first, when I first started getting things ready," she whispers into her ear. "And you aren't the only lucky one."

"Ugh… Let's eat, before I end up jumping you," Jinx groans, her stomach tightening as she reacts to the sensation.

"Sounds like a plan," Raven laughs, floating into the seat opposite her lover as they begin digging in.

The day moves in a blur after their breakfast is finished. In short time, the pair materialize inside Jinx's safehouse.

Raven quickly goes through her explanations, the thought of Nightwing tracking her down and showing up at any moment making Raven's discussion with Gizmo much more tense than expected.

"So I get to do  _whatever_  I want?" Gizmo asks with a grin.

"There will be limitations," she states with a frown. "Richard is a bastard, but Victor is not, in any stretch. I don't want you messing with him too much. At most, some minor viruses to stump him. Nothing that could end up hurting him or giving him a psychotic break dealing with it."

Gizmo's eyes widen at that, his grin growing larger.

"That's downright charitable, Raven."

"If you're good. First, I get you inside."

Raven's soul-self quickly rises from her body and wraps around the keyboard, depressing them in a sequence faster than their eyes can follow.

Both Jinx and Gizmo watch in awe as the screen flickers, showing security wall after security wall of the Titans' mainframe opening.

"I coulda'-"

"He can't know you were there until I'm ready. Cyborg would know if anything tried to hack in. It's why you always got knocked out when you tried before."

"I coulda' beaten the stinkin' security-"

"Eventually. No time," Raven interrupts.

The screen flickers once more, and her soul-self vanishes.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper, placing it in front of him.

"These first. Any others you can get in ten minutes are a bonus, but that's the window before Cyborg knows someone's inside while out of the Tower."

He quickly goes into action, the sound of rapid key clicks filling the silent air.

One by one, the pictures of Raven, Jinx, Cyborg, and Starfire appear on the screen before they are wiped from existence.

With a small frown, he moves on to planting his virus, the coding designed to follow the data of Richard's files and destroying every copy made from their mainframe.

As he does that, Raven's eyes glow black, and a disc materializes in her hands.

"Is that-"

"Richard's vault holds a lot of dangerous toys. This one's the backup. Jinx, if you would?"

She offers her hand to the meta, and her Cheshire smile forms.

Her eyes flare bright pink, and she points at the plastic.

" _Incendio_!" she shouts.

The disc immediately ignites in green flames.

Before the fire can damage the safehouse, a bubble of Raven's soul-self wraps around it.

The women watch as the plastic turns to nothing but molten black chunks and ash in the bubble, and then it's gone.

A loud series of beeps from her pocket makes the inventor jump, his rapid typing interrupted.

"The hell's that?"

"You have five minutes left. I'd hurry if you want to have your fun," she instructs.

Raven simply pulls her communicator out as he returns to his furious typing.

Her eyebrow rises at the number of missed calls indicated, despite her less than 24-hour absence.

She had checked on things when she first prepared to make breakfast, something undoubtedly inspired by the new acceptance of the more feminine aspects that came with Love.

The only thing that the Titans had dealt with were a minor fight, certainly nothing warranting so many calls to her.

"This can't be anything good," she muses before flipping the communicator closed.

"They checkin' up on ya'?" Gizmo inquires.

"Indeed. I'd find it funny if not so overbearing. As if I can't be on my own for more than a few hours."

A thought occurs to her, and her eyes glow black.

"Gizmo, where was the location of his cage?"

"In some bunker downtown, by some old library. Ain't like it's gonna' matter, now he's got no blueprints for it. Apparently he's only got it halfway done."

Raven's eyes narrow, becoming noticeably red.

"Old library you say. Interesting… Jinx, dear, would you mind joining me in a little vandalism?"

The meta's own eyes narrow as she nods in agreement.

"I'd love to. See ya' later, Giz."

The two vanish in a black portal, and Giz stares at his screen with a grin.

"I think this should give the clutch-head somethin' to really piss him off," he laughs before initiating his virus and shutting the connection down…  
 ******************

Raven and Jinx materialize on an abandoned street, Jinx's knuckles red.

"That was fun. Shame I couldn't cave in bird-brain's damn empty skull while I was at it."

"Maybe the chance will come yet," Raven offers. "If he has a backup plan I didn't foresee-"

Jinx reaches into Raven's pocket and pulls her cell phone free.

The psychic stares at her in confusion as her fingers quickly work on the keypad, a frown of concentration on her face.

She types something in and snaps the phone shut with a sense of finality, just as Raven begins inquiring into her actions.

"If you get even a hint of trouble, you just hold one down. I'm going to let you go in alone like you asked, but I'm not leaving you alone with the guy who came up with  _that_  plan. I'll be across the street at that book store you showed me. I get a call from you, and I'll be there as fast as I can run."

She hands Raven her phone back, a frown on her lips.

"I really wish you hadn't asked me to leave you to it, Rae. The man built a fucking magic  _cage_ to completely take you out…"

"Zatanna is the only threat he has against me, and against me her powers are nothing," Raven responds with a shrug.

Seeing her lover's frown, she leans in and kisses her, feeling her tension slowly drain away.

"I'll be fine, Jinx. If something happens, you'll get that call. If it comes to a fight, Victor would not take sides, and Garfield would be too wrapped up in wondering what the hell was going on."

"And the alien? Rae, the woman can punch a hole in a car with her bare fist. I've seen her pissed off. If she were to hit you, even your body would-"

"Koriand'r would not fight," Raven interrupts. "If it came down to Richard manipulating her into joining… I have a few ways that I would be able to get her to abstain. Zatanna really is the only threat, and if I'm in my soul-self, her magic can do nothing past concussive force to me."

Jinx stares into her eyes, concern burning bright.

"Alright," she finally sighs. "I don't like it, but I've grown up since Wally… It's your fight to take, if it comes to it."

Raven smiles, gently cupping her neck.

"I definitely lucked out," she muses.

"Damn right," Jinx declares with a grin. "I didn't do too bad, either."

With a smile, Raven presses another kiss to her lips as her soul-self envelopes them.

When they appear in the alley behind an office building, the women separate, both wearing small smiles.

"Find something good to read. Have some coffee. I'm hoping it will not be long and will come to something agreeable."

"I hope so, too. It'd be great if you could still hang out with the others."

Raven nods, her smile waning some.

"Indeed. And about the other matter-"

"You don't need to worry, Rae. I ain't complainin'," Jinx says with a grin.

"But you don't think that it's rather sudden?" she asks with a grimace, their discussion whilst dismantling the cage coming to mind.

"Oh, sure, it's definitely sudden. Sudden don't mean bad, babe. 'Sides, I really want to get used to wakin' up like that. Remember, I was onta' the whole inner feelins' stuff before you. It ain't sudden for  _me_."

"If you're sure," Raven surrenders, her smile opposing her sigh.

"I am. It'll take me a few days to get you a key. Steel might take some convincin', but if he takes you in, not much he can complain 'bout, right?"

Raven's smile is even wider as the ground at her feet opens in an inky, black hole.

"See you in a bit."

"Get goin' before I convince ya' to make a stop home for a little fun, first," Jinx laughs.

Drawing a deep breath, Raven centers herself and slowly sinks into a portal.

She rises up on the rocks outside her home, her senses expanding immediately in search of threats.

She feels the presences of all the Titans in the Tower, Nightwing and Zatanna's dark emotions seeming to grate in the air against the utterly content and happy emotions marking the others.

Eyes narrowed, she feels attentions in the tower focus on her, Zatanna's magic seeming to scrape against her as she walks to the door.

When the door slides open silently from her push, the talking within immediately cuts off, and all eyes move to her.

"Yo! Rae, where ya' been? We were just gettin' ready ta' send… a… uh, Rae?" Cyborg asks, his attention finally taking in her long hair and the black of her nails.

Nightwing's eyes narrow at her as she moves into the living room, her body showing none of her tension.

"Where the hell have you been? We put in several calls for almost a whole day, and you didn't respond, at all," he demands with a growl.

Beast Boy goes to make a calming remark to the man when something catches his attention, his nose scrunching up.

"Holy shit, Rae, you stink like a whorehouse!" he gasps.

" _Should've showered_ ," Raven groans, mentally smacking herself.

"What is this house of whores?" Kori inquires in confusion.

Raven's face turns bright red, and she ignores the glares focused on her.

"It's a very ineloquent way of saying I've recently had sex, Koriand'r."

An amused smirk crosses her lips at the gasp and blush that immediately comes from the alien, her face almost matching her hair in its color.

"Uh… yeah," Beast Boy says with a sheepish grin. "Sorry. I kinda… I'll be quiet now."

Only Cyborg sees humor in the situation, with the others staring at her like she'd scandalized them.

"You've been having sex for an entire day? I don't think so," Nightwing snarls. "Now answer me, Raven."

In response, she simply raises her eyebrow at him, finding his amusing.

" _Evidently he hasn't checked on his toy_ ," she muses internally.

"You've never marathoned?" she quips, unable to suppress her laugh at his blush.

"Don't-"

"If it's any consolation, it was very engaging, so it could have very well been just that if I hadn't had other priorities. But no, not just having sex, Richard, if you  _must_  know. I was paying attention to things. Had an issue arisen, I would've been there. As it stands, some Intergang thugs are all that showed up in my absence, and that hardly constitutes a threat."

"You're part of my team. I call, you show up, that's how it works," Nightwing growls.

"And would you like me to bring you a newspaper in my teeth, too?" she inquires, biting back a laugh at his shocked expression.

"Was that a joke, Rae? When'd you get a sense of humor?" Beast Boy asks.

"I've had a very enlightening day," she responds with a shrug.

With a gesture, she raises her long hair towards them, making sure they see her black nails as well.

" _Very_  enlightening."

"Making another portal for daddy?" Zatanna mocks.

A brief flicker of irritation shoots through Raven, but the effect the insinuation has on her friends quickly grounds her once more.

"Hardly. He's dead. I killed him, if you'll recall. I merely undid something the monks of Azar did to me in my youth. If you want a reason for my absence, Richard, I can tell you that I wanted to be on my own while dealing with it, but I doubt you'd believe me anyway, and I'm through lying. I didn't want to stay anywhere that you two were," she states with a gesture to the pair.

"I thought you guys worked through all that," Cyborg groans.

"You're right, Raven, I don't believe you. You'd say that to our faces instead of hiding away for almost a full day. I want the real reason,  _now_ ," Nightwing demands again.

"I did not  _hide_. I removed myself from what effect your presences had on my psyche with a much more enjoyable and calming influence. When I gave you my report on my altercation with Psimon, I got the distinct impression you wouldn't mind not having me around for a while," she adds with a small smirk.

"Whoa, Psimon? Like, freaky brain-in-a-head-jar-thing psychic guy?" Beast Boy inquires.

"Off topic," Nightwing hisses. "Answer.  _Now_. You know I'll find out exactly where you've been with who if I want to, Raven, so save the show and just save both of us some time."

"Will you?" she challenges. "That sounds vaguely like a threat, Richard.  _Don't_  threaten me," she adds with a small hiss sounding in her voice.

"Whoa! Okay, hang on, guys. What the hell's goin' on?" Cyborg demands as he shoots to his feet.

"Richard, I owe you no explanations of what I do in the process of getting more answers to what's happening with the thefts. We established that. If I happen to find someplace that isn't in the growing irritation you two are on my senses to sleep while investigating, it isn't really an issue."

"You  _don't_  go off the grid, Raven, not with the people you get your information from," he snaps.

Her own eyes narrow, her mirth vanishing at his tone.

"And  _you_ don't command me out of power over me, Richard. Do not think otherwise."

Nightwing takes a step back, eyes wide at the growl in her voice.

"As for you, Zatanna, do not think yourself so great as to lie to my face and think it believed. Your apology had little meaning to it, if any existed at all, and from your comment, you appear to still believe me nothing more than a demon. I've let it go, because at least  _I_  meant what I said then, but you have become no less an irritant on my nerves than you were at your arrival."

The sorceress's eyes go wide in shock, the others staring between the women.

"And both of you are utterly intolerable at this stage. I decided I needed a break, lest something unfortunate give in the struggle. I told you nothing, Richard, because it's frankly better to deal with the aftermath than dealing with your egotism when you would inform me I'm not free to do as I wish."

"Well, I could see how I'd be an  _irritant_ ," Zatanna muses. "I mean, with how secretive and sneaky you've been, I could only imagine that you wouldn't want me jumping to  _conclusions_. Like how you've got all kinds of demon mojo working for you now, for example. I'm sure there's a perfectly understandable-"

"Other than the fact that I'm  _half-demon_?" Raven interrupts. "With the power I released from within myself, what I've always kept hidden and locked down for the comfort of others is merely at the surface. It's not like it's something new, I'm just not hiding it any more."

"I bet it comes in real handy in the enemy's bed," Zatanna snarks back. "I mean, with you two stealing all kinds of dangerous magic items with no possibly good explanation in sight, I must just be biased."

"What're you-"

Raven's heart skips a beat, her skin paling at the insinuation.

"That's way outta' line," Cyborg barks.

Raven's mind whirls, things clicking into place in her mind and forming a very ugly picture.

"What're you guys even talking about?" Beast Boy demands, his own eyes narrowed at the three.

"Oh, she hasn't told you guys about her new  _friend_? Shocker," Zatanna laughs. "She's been-"

"You followed me to Gotham," Raven muses, her voice silencing the others. "You watched me fight Psimon. You watched me  _almost die_  against Psimon," she snarls. "He almost shredded my soul to pieces while you did nothing."

"I wasn't going to interfere with anything, even if I wanted to. 'Sides, you and your girlfriend handled him just fine, in the end, once you went all hellfire and red skinned on him," the sorceress laughs.

"Rae's dating a chick?"

Under the glares, Beast Boy shrinks into himself, a sheepish grin on his face.

"Shutting up now, I know."

Raven's eyes narrow further, the red specks in her eyes beginning to brighten.

"You were  _ordered_ to follow and not interfere even if I was dying. Oh, Richard, I  _must_  hand it to you, you've truly become so very like your mentors."

Nightwing's face reddens in anger at the accusation, the others watching in shock as Raven's eyes begin to glow brighter.

"Don't you  _dare_  compare me to Deathstroke," he snarls. "If we're laying everything out, then answer her accusation. Give me something I can believe other than what she told me she saw."

"Funny, I don't recall mentioning him in any specifics, just your mentors. You've had a lot of mentors, Richard. Interesting, indeed," she says with a small laugh.

"You're dating a villain, and didn't mention it to anyone. A villain who is a thief and a sorceress, and a damn good fit for a suspect in the heists. You're hoarding objects of power you collect while trying hard to keep separate from the Titans. You're stripping the power from the items you do return, and we've only got your word that you're sending them out to disperse and not into some focus, like the Gem of Blood you could have lied about on that first night. And you lied to my face about Psimon, and pocketed the ring before you and your new girlfriend disappeared. You were also transformed into your demonic self when facing Psimon down, and you almost killed him. Are  _any_  of these lies?" he demands in a low, threatening voice.

"Whoa, okay, that's enough," Cyborg growls. "I knew about her datin', and I get why she wanted it kept on the d-l."

Nightwing's glare transfers to the metal man, seeming to narrow even further.

"You should've told me. Immediately."

"The world ain't black and white, Dick. Her girlfriend isn't exactly spotlessly clean, but she ain't an  _enemy_ , and it ain't our business. If she makes Rae happy and helps her help us, it wasn't somethin' I was gonna' bring up. If I thought for even a second it was somethin' dangerous to the Titans, I'd've convinced her to tell you herself."

"You really knew?" Raven asks while her skin turns pale.

"Yeah, I knew, girl. Hacker, remember? I get it, though. Another reason I didn't say nothin'. Ain't my business."

Raven nods at him, her blanch fading slowly.

"More importantly, I told him not to tell you, because frankly, I knew your first reaction would be looking into every aspect of her life," Raven cuts in. "It isn't your business as the team leader to cage me in this mass of steel because you think I'm dangerous. I gave you reason to be suspicious, but that doesn't even come close to matching your responses, none of which included just asking me and giving me a single reason to tell you the truth."

Her eyes narrow further, his other accusations rolling around in her mind.

"And Zatanna would know nothing beyond what she could see from whatever hole she stalked me from. If she were close enough to sense anything concrete in nature, I would've known she was there, which means she kept her distance. You know I've returned the items to their museums. For all Zatanna, and in extension you, knew, I could have teleported it to the museum on my way out."

"I know what I saw," Zatanna argues.

"I'm sure. And as for my treatment of the items, every single item that's been stolen is a dangerous weapon, put ignorantly on display in terribly guarded museums where they could easily be stolen from. I will not let my conscience suffer the wrath of putting them back with the powers they possess, as clearly the museums and the simpletons who have agreements with them care little about handing death in the thousands on a silver platter to any who would abuse their powers."

"Which gives us zero proof you're doing what you say you're doing with the power," Nightwing contends.

"Doctor Fate. Jason Blood. Etrigan. John Constantine. Hell,  _Mumbo Jumbo_ , probably, if he was pointed in the right direction.  _Any_  mystic, good or evil, even Zatanna herself  _should_ be able to tell you I've done exactly what I said by looking in the right places. Energy is recycled, not destroyed, and the traces of my work are undoubtedly in the cosmos at large. By all means, make the calls. I made sure the power would be of no use to anyone, and I don't regret my actions. Power such as these items have need not exist."

"And you aren't the judge of that," Nightwing interrupts.

"Every item is without a scratch on its return. Their lack of power means nothing to the curators and ignorants who put them out in the open to begin with."

"And it  _wasn't your call_ ," he reiterates through grit teeth.

"And whose call is it, Richard?" she challenges. "You wouldn't know magic if it bit you in the ass. If what I've been doing was dangerous, someone in the League would've gotten notice from Doctor Fate or another mystic who would know, and they would've been hounding me weeks ago."

His glower falters at that, a thoughtful frown forming.

"Okay, you have a point-"

"The hell she does," Zatanna interrupts. "You've been fucking a thief, who's a sorceress. The two of you could've done more than enough to throw people off."

"Who I date is not your business, just as I do not inquire into any of  _your_  affairs."

The wince that passes over both of their expressions is not missed, by Raven or Cyborg. Even Beast Boy's eyes narrow in thought, though Kori seems too focused on Raven to notice.

"Friend Raven, surely it would have been better had you just told us. You've found someone to make you happy. This should be most joyous news. Surely-"

A small smile curves on Raven's lips, her eyes warming as they leave the pair and move to the other Titans.

"Thank you, Koriand'r. But I couldn't, for more than just petty reasons… She has her reasons to remain hidden."

Her gaze moves back to the others, instantly hardening once more.

"And I'm giving you one warning not to insult her, Zatanna. She is a  _reformed_  thief. She's helped me in my search cleaning up  _your_  mess, by far more than you have. Even if Richard will never publicly approve, and will always beg ignorant bliss on this matter, the results speak for themselves. I have returned many, many of the stolen items, and her information has helped everyone else, as well. That network of underground magicians and monsters I fabricated has, the entire time, been only the information she and a close circle around her have gotten."

"Which kind of proves my point. There's no way that she'd know all that without either being among the thieves, knowing the thieves, or having the a network stronger in intelligence gathering than the Justice League."

Raven's eyes narrow, her mind working quickly on how not to compromise her lover...  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Incendio- Latin for "burn"

Next chapter, the climax of the first part of the story. I hope you're enjoying a great deal thus far, at least as much as I have writing it. Let me know what you think, be it positive or negative. Thank you for reading thus far, and see you all next time!


	25. Fallout

#  XXIV. Fallout

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Zatanna stares Raven down, her amusement entirely out of place.

"Well, which one is it,  _Raven_? Is she a thief, a friend of thieves, or a spook?" she demands.

Raven considers her options, the cell phone weighing heavily in her pocket.

Cyborg, too, seems uncomfortable, apparently true to his word on understanding the situation.

Finally, Raven decides on tried and true sarcasm and distraction.

"Or perhaps the Justice League doesn't take much to top. It took anonymous tips to bring your attentions to the thefts to begin with, so you guys don't seem too on top of things. I don't honestly care where her intel comes from, just that it's always right and she didn't steal them."

"I don't believe you," the sorceress growls. "Even if it's true, that you're returning a ton of these items on perfectly on the level information, there are damn sure to be a lot of items you  _haven't_  returned."

Raven's eyes narrow at the accusation, the red in her eyes glowing brightly.

"So that's it. You truly think  _I'm_  the thief behind a worldwide heist scheme," Raven bites out, even the thought making her ill.

The others all stare in wide-eyed shock at them, waiting with baited breath for Zatanna to deny it.

"You're amassing a power for an eventual attack on the scale of your father. You're stealing them with the help of a convict who skated on a life-term imprisonment for murder after escalating from theft after she left the Titans," she replies.

"It makes sense," Nightwing adds, though he seems not nearly as convinced.

Raven ignores him, approaching the sorceress far more quickly than a human would be capable.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on, you're dating  _Jinx_!?" Beast Boy asks, staring in shock at the psychic. "She totally bailed on us. The hell're-"

"Garfield-"

"Shutting up, I know," he grumbles, glaring at her.

"Zatanna, I've given you your only warning. Think on this. Were I a demon as you assume, and had you insulted a loved one as you have, what reason would I have to not separate your head from your neck?"

The tone, more than the question itself, sends Zatanna several steps back, her eyes wide.

"As for Jinx, she was screwed over. Heavily. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of launching a formal investigation into the senator and judge who made sure she had no chance of fighting for her  _justified_  defense on the part of an incapacitated man."

"That's bull! She'd have called someone-"

"Everything about it was crooked. As I said earlier, I know when someone lies to me. She didn't. This was months ago, when I had absolutely no reason to believe her, and I still did. She didn't get a phone call. In fact, she was sent to Belle Reve and almost killed over it, numerous times, because she was on  _our_  side."

"Then you could call the warden right now and-"

"You wanna' piss off Amanda Waller by wasting her time?" Cyborg asks, interrupting her and surprising them all.

"What?"

"I told you, too. I know the whole thing. Her story's on the up-and-up. She killed the son of a senator, who was beating the shit outta' some chump. He didn't show up to court, and the senator pressed on the judge's pious hang-ups about metas. She was denied her rights, put in a closed court, and shipped off without any chances to contact anyone."

Zatanna remains unfazed, something alien moving in her gaze that sends Raven's skin crawling.

Once more, it vanishes the instant she notices it, but this time she's sure of its existence.

"Which is all utterly irrelevant. She's  _on our side_. She's done your job a lot better than  _you_  have, Zatanna."

"Which still seems to imply she has a very personal idea of where to look. At best an enabler. The two of you make more sense than anyone else. You can teleport, you can hide from senses and mess with awarenesses, and you can mess with cameras and electronics. She can more than make people confused with her powers. I've been reading up. She could fry memory with a controlled hex bolt. And both of you are magic users, who would have  _every_ reason to be the thieves."

As Zatanna lists off her reasonings, the others notice the air in the room becoming distinctly colder.

As if matching the change, Raven's eyes lose their red glow, the purple becoming an almost icy shade.

"By that logic, you could be behind it, too,  _Zatanna_."

The sorceress's eyes widen almost comically at that, her jaw snapping shut.

The others turn their gaze to her, their thoughts obvious.

"I'm not!" she shouts, as if scandalized.

Raven pauses as her words register in her mind. A nagging thought slips into her mind, one that gives her reason to be more wary of the sorceress.

Putting the sensation off for when Jinx's presence will help her sound her thoughts out, she returns her mind to the problem at hand.

"No, you aren't. Or at least, you're on the lower rungs of my list of potential suspects. But your logic is too weak to settle on  _any_  culprits," Raven argues. "Come up with better reasoning before accusing me."

"Right now, give me anyone else who would be a better fit for being able to do this all on their own? We've been looking for an organization this whole time, but if it's really just one or two especially dangerous and skilled sorceresses with a penchant for thievery and being criminals, that would've made it a  _lot_  harder for us. So go ahead, tell me how my logic's unsound, Raven," Zatanna sneers.

"Do you want an alphabetical list, or a chronological one?" the psychic snarks back.

Her hand comes up, her index finger rising between Zatanna's eyes.

"Teleportation's a factor? Kydd Wykkyd can do that and he's not to the best of my knowledge even a magician. You, Etrigan, myself, Doctor Fate, Wotan, and innumerable other magic wielders have mastered what is, essentially, a pretty basic technique for anyone with magical talent."

"And how many can do it without any manifestation?" Zatanna returns. "I leave smoke everywhere. Fate comes through a giant, glowing ankh. Etrigan's got fire all around him whenever he pops in. Maybe Wykkyd, but he's nowhere close to the power he would need to be at to pull it off.  _You_ , on the other hand, come through literal darkness, which interferes with electronics and is hard to spot in even dim lighting."

"Fair enough. But your smoke is theatrics, you can slip through that hat of yours, or through thin air if you want. As could someone like Wotan. We'll go out on this thin limb of thought you're calling reasoning. Off the top of my head, I can think of three people right now who are among my biggest suspects, who would both be more than powerful enough to do this and would have the reason to do it. That alone tells me your reasoning is narrow-sighted if you immediately conclude I'm the culprit."

"Oh?  _Do_  tell?"

A twitch of irritation goes through Raven at the sorceress's tone, her eyes narrowing against her.

"If you're going based on my method being hard to pinpoint due to the darkness I use, there's the Shade. If you're assuming it's me because I can do such feats as hide myself from you that, I'm sure, seem astounding to you due to the difference in our skills, then there's also Morgana Le Fey and Circe. There. Three people off the top of my head that would easily fill your broad scope."

The others stare at Raven in shock, her open mockery utterly unexpected.

"No, please, I'm sure you've got a witty retort. I can keep going. I have a  _long_  list of people I'd think capable of these thefts before I got to your name, so we could do this as long as you wish to waste my time on something so utterly simple, if you want."

Without warning, Zatanna's fist lashes out for Raven's throat, her eyes narrowed in humiliated rage.

Smirking, the psychic sidesteps her swing and brings her foot out, sending her sprawling forward with her own momentum.

" _Really_? I'd say you've embarrassed yourself enough this night already. Do I  _really_  need to put you on the floor before you get a hold of yourself, Zatanna?" Raven asks with a small chuckle.

"Oh, I bet you'd  _love_  to get me on the floor," Zatanna snarls as her body moves into a spin.

The kick is well-executed, signs of learning from the Batman himself shining in the perfect balance of her swing.

Her leg moves in a blur, moving to smash Raven's neck and send her wheezing to the ground.

Despite the power behind the move, her kick soars over Raven's ducked head, the half-demon's eyes narrowing in irritation.

Her hand wraps around the sorceress's ankle, holding her in place on the verge of falling.

Muscles creak under her grip, Zatanna's face contorting into a wince at the sensation of crushing steel on her joint.

"Were it a year ago, maybe even a few days ago, I would simply let your persistence in irritating me go and head off to meditate. I'll give you this warning once, Zatanna, and you ignore me at your own considerable risk. Do  _not_ think you can come at me with just your fists."

The sound of something snapping in the air draws her attention to her side, where Nightwing's metal bo staff points at her head.

"I'll extend that warning to you as well, if needed, Richard."

" ** _Enough_**!" Cyborg shouts, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Rae, put her down. Dick, you don't drop the staff, I'm going to bend it in two."

The half-machine's irritation rolls through Raven in waves, making her wince as it adds to her own.

Forcing her shields back into place, she feels something slip away from her mind as she lets Zatanna go.

The sorceress screeches as her tether disappears, her utter lack of balance sending her onto the floor.

Only a thin sheet of black light keeps her from smashing her face, her eyes widening in surprise as she's slowly uprighted by Raven's soul-self.

Nightwing doesn't move, his narrowed eyes locked on the half-demon before him.

"You don't pick fights here," he says through gritted teeth.

"I picked the fight. Of course. Truly, I'm at fault for her being so easily goaded from me pointing out why she's simple-minded to accuse me on such weak bases," Raven laughs.

Zatanna stomps up to her then, eyes narrowed.

"Personal space," Raven muses at her proximity. "I've warned you, so if you're getting this close, then it must be out of something other than thinking to swing at me again. I assure you if that's the case, only one angry woman's allowed this close to me, and you aren't her… though I suppose that wouldn't really matter to you, would it?" she ponders.

The statement takes Zatanna off-guard almost as much as it does Raven herself, her eyes widening as she ponders what could cause her to voice such a thing.

Before she wonders on it too much, though, she notices Zatanna's expression.

The sorceress's face shows many things in that moment. Shock, understanding, and rage are there. But a burning pulse of anger sweeps through Raven at the utter lack of sorrow or regret.

Raven moves to stand a mere inch from the startled sorceress, her eyes narrowing.

"The hell're you talking about?" she demands. "I haven't done-"

"Do  _not_  finish that lie. It's very unwise to lie to my face. You can posture a higher moral ground than Jinx and I due to our past actions and blood all you want, but at least when  _we_  started dating, we were both single," Raven hisses out.

She doesn't realize the volume of her accusation until she feels the shock rippling through the room.

Instantly, her eyes widen, a sense of dread creeping across her spine.

" _What_  did you say?" Zatanna demands, her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Just a point of thought, the next time you try to go high and mighty on me, that you should consider yourself able to argue ethics and morality if your record is unblemished, which I imagine it isn't entirely" Raven says, hoping the others don't connect the dots because of her.

By the feeling of terror coming from Nightwing, and the anger and shock coming from Cyborg first, and then slowly Beast Boy and Starfire, she knows her wishes will not come true.

"Raven, what're you talking about?" Cyborg asks, though his glare is focused on Nightwing.

"Absolutely nothing beyond speculation, on a topic I have no business knowing or talking about," she sighs with a last-ditch effort to negate the words that her mind hadn't fully worked through before they escaped her.

Zatanna's eyes narrow even further, and her arm pulls back in preparation to swing at the psychic.

But then, a look of pain crosses her expression, and the limb drops limply at her side, the hints of tears beginning to form.

Raven's own mood quickly goes lower, the regret of her statement mounting with every second of Koriand'r's growing sadness.

"F-Friend Zatanna?" the alien princess asks, unable to keep the quiver from her voice.

Zatanna's tears begin breaking free, and her body starts shaking.

"I-"

"I fucked up," Nightwing finally speaks, his voice vibrating with regrets of his own.

"H-How long?" Kori asks, her own tears forming as her fear is turned to reality. "How long has the…  _affair_ ," she says, finally remembering the word Raven used, "been ongoing? And how long has Friend Raven known?"

"I… I figured it out yesterday," Raven says, her mask gone in the face of her emotions. "I… I didn't intend to do this to you, Kori. I'm a complete bitch."

"You did n-nothing, Friend Raven," Starfire argues, her voice quivering as she rises to a stand. "I… wish to be alone for a while."

Her utterly broken tone pushes Raven to motion, quickly materializing before the alien.

Before, hugs had been a rare thing even with her one female friend.

Now, it comes easily as she pulls the alien into her arms, feeling the weight of her head on her shoulder.

Nightwing stares at the women, his own pain and anger clear through his mask.

"Kori, I'm so sorry, I-"

Kori's head snaps up, her expression cutting his speech off.

"I do not want sorries, Richard. I… I do not know what I want. Perhaps an explanation… When I am not…  _volatile_."

With a bone-crushing hug to Raven, the alien vanishes through the door, the psychic's own eyes burning as they stare at the ground.

"You bitch," Nightwing hisses, eyes narrowed to a murderous glare on her.

Raven's head snaps up, the others shocked at the tear tracks on her grey skin.

"I assure you, Richard, you cannot make me regret my words more than I do. All the same, do not  _dare_  to blame your actions on me."

"You didn't tell her out of loyalty, you told her to win a petty fucking  _argument_ ," he snarls, stomping towards her.

Raven's sadness vanishes in the wake of her anger. Anger at all three of them, her own part not deniable.

Cyborg advances then, his fist slamming into the side of Nightwing's face.

With a grunt, he falls to the floor, blood leaking from his split lip.

"Rae ain't the asshole here. How long you been screwin' Kori over? Ain't you always goin' on 'bout how we have to be moral paragons for everyone?"

"He isn't wrong," Raven tells the metal man, staring at her former leader. "I didn't… I was hoping he would man up and tell her. It wasn't my place to say anything… I was absolutely not in the right using it for spite… I didn't expect  _this_  when I took all my emotions back in."

"I was planning on telling her," Nightwing growls.

"Of course you were. Eventually. Maybe after a month or two of fucking them both," Cyborg growls, his eye narrowed dangerously at him.

"We were both planning on telling her," Zatanna cuts in. "It takes two… It wasn't like we planned for this to happen."

"And you," Cyborg growls, turning on the sorceress. "The hell!? You knew him when he was younger. Shouldn't you have known better than to get wrapped up in this?"

Zatanna's eyes go to the ground, tears shining in her gaze.

"I came here to keep watch on Raven and ended up being here for a lot longer than I expected, which meant a lot more stress… There's no excuse, for what either of us did, but at least we were planning on softening the damned blow."

Her eyes rise up to narrow at Raven then, and this time, the alien sensation of her gaze doesn't go away.

Raven's own gaze narrows, a mental limb moving to the sorceress to find what it is as a very unpleasant sensation takes hold.

"What's done cannot be undone. I came here for a reason, Richard, and it was not this. That said, this is undoubtedly the source of our problem. If you think with your upper head for a few seconds, you would not immediately jump to agreeing with the theory that I would betray those I've protected for 7 years alongside of you."

His eyes narrow in anger once again, the discussion a fine distraction for them all.

"Because you're in such a fantastic position to convince me right now," he snarls.

"I regret my handling of that. However, no matter that I needlessly hurt my friend or that you two are nowhere close to being able to lecture me on the morality of my dating, I would still have no need to convince you of anything."

"Frankly, I think it's pretty stupid of you to think that, anyway," Cyborg adds. "Rae's been nothing but a help with this whole damn investigation, and by extension, that means that Jinx has been, too."

"Victor, you don't think this is all a little too convenient?" Zatanna asks with a frown. "Look at this mess. With just a few words, she completely avoided any of my questions."

Raven's eyes narrow at that, and she floats towards the sorceress with a red glow to her gaze.

"Then let me make things crystal clear, Zatanna Zatarra. I have not stolen anything. I am not part of the people who have, nor is Jinx. Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant. And if you decide in your blind, prejudiced arrogance, or your possession, or whatever has made you such the fool that you are, that  _you_  can threaten  _me_   ** _or_** _my love_ , I will teach you what regret really is."

"Is that a threat?" the woman responds with grit teeth.

Raven's lips curl into a smile at this, sending a shiver through Zatanna that, for just a brief moment, shoves a spike of fear through the haze of her mind and pushes her body into an instinctive backpedal.

The others in the room shiver as a strange sensation floods the air, and Raven's hair floats wildly around her, whipped by a wind they can't feel.

"It is not a threat. It is a geas. I don't know why you so soundly assume me to be the mastermind of the thefts your organization had to receive help to notice, much less why you assume me evil when  _I_  had to save all of  _you_ , because  _you_  were so arrogant to begin with."

Zatanna cringes at the tone of the psychic's voice, the fog clearing utterly from her mind and making her realize just how poor her goading and decision making has been for months.

Just as she begins wondering what caused such a change, the fog snaps back onto her mind, with a force almost powerful enough to send her to the ground.

Her psyche is compressed, and the fog takes a firm hold, becoming Zatanna after her months of resistance.

"Know this, Zatanna. Whatever force drives you, whether it's truly just you alone in your mind or the influence of another, I will  _not_  tolerate your ego to persist. I'm going to leave, and if you  _ever_  see me again, you'd better hope for your own sake that you've overcome whatever stupidity bounces around within that cavernous bubble that lies beneath your hair."

If not for the utterly terrifying presence Raven's threat fills the room with, both Beast Boy and Cyborg would have certainly laughed at the insult.

As it stands, they are just as frozen as Nightwing and Zatanna, even if they aren't as afraid as the sorceress.

Zatanna's eyes suddenly fill with a silver light, and her hands point at Raven.

" _Ffo kcab_!"

A magical wave rushes forth from her hands, and her eyes widen in shock as a shell of black light slams into existence around Raven's body.

Her spell smacks into it, and the force whips back around.

Raven's soul-self disappears in wisps of black smoke as Zatanna slams into the ground, not visibly hurt but very clearly shocked.

"What-"

"Your spells do not have any hold on me, anymore than your fists would," Raven interrupts with a shrug. "Remember that, were I decide to retaliate right here and now, you would have been the initiator after more than adequate warning against such actions. As it stands, I'm just too tired of you to waste more of my energy. Stay down, and do not rise again until I've taken my leave, if you have any inkling of self-preservation instinct."

Zatanna gasps, even her fogged mind knowing the wisdom of staying on the floor.

With a grunt, Nightwing slowly rises, his hand fisting in her cloak as he stares down at her.

"You're acting a  _lot_ like the demon you claim not to be right now, Raven," he mocks.

"Because I will not tolerate prejudices anymore?"

She laughs at the notion, advancing on her former leader in the same way she had the witch.

"No, Richard, I am not a demon. I'm not human, either. As I said, a  _very_  enlightening two days. I undid what the monks did to me in my youth. For the first time, I'm just me, and I'm through catering to fears of me that have no warrant. One side-effect of this is that I'm no longer going to tolerate insults based solely on what I  _can_  do."

"So you deal with this by doing  _exactly_  what you  _can_  do? Might want to rethink that," Richard mocks.

"You think  _that_  is what I can do? Throwing a simple spell back at its caster? If  _that_  is what you're afraid of, then I really did overthink your intelligence, Richard. Though I suppose the fact that you so readily jumped onto a theory-"

"I didn't  _readily jump_  onto the theory. You've been acting off for months, which makes sense considering Jinx. I wanted to believe it was the thieves stealing things. I sent Zatanna after you into Gotham hoping she'd come back telling me she was wrong. And every single action you've taken in the last months made a lot more sense when she gave me that report. It makes more sense that you two would be able to do all of it than most other thieves, and it'd explain why the criminals never told us anything, since there are a lot of them that're terrified of you."

Raven pauses at that, the lack of untruthfulness warring with the sense of wrongness coming from him and clashing in her mind.

Finally, her irritation wins out, a new light on his actions not making for much better of a picture.

"Then you would have not publicly aired everything. You would have asked for my side of the story, in private. I can admit that I have also erred with my handling of things. But you would assume after a one-sided, biased account that I'm not only a thief, but a villain, despite all I've gone through to avoid that fate. You would have trusted her report but verified on your own, if you were any decent detective."

His eyes narrow at that, his body stiffening as he takes a threatening step towards her.

"You've got a lot of arrogance yourself. Zatanna gives me that report, and then you go missing for nearly 24 hours. You then show up, after ignoring  _every single call_  that I made to you, and you look like when you were turning into the gem for Trigon. The idea that you have, in fact, been acting as a villainess is not so hard to buy anymore."

"Then you're an idiot," Raven hisses.

His eyes narrow at that, both at her and at Cyborg's agreeing nod of his head.

"You're suspended from the Titans, effective immediately. If you want back in, you'll turn everything you haven't already returned to the Justice League."

"Even were I to have any more items at present to give, the  _Justice League_  let these items get stolen in the first place! The only one I'd trust with them would be Doctor Fate, and I don't exactly have a V.I.P. pass to his Tower to hand them off. Do not mistake my regret for Kori's pain for weakness to your petty threats spurred on by self-loathing. I was planning on resigning when I came here."

"I think that might be a good idea," Cyborg adds, glaring at the former Boy Wonder. "If this is how you treat your friends, I'm not havin' any of it. I thought you learned from the whole Red-X stuff about goin' behind backs."

Nightwing winces, releasing his grip on Raven.

"You're dangerous, Raven. I can't let you just go on your own. Why do you think I-"

His words return Raven's rage, her sadness entirely vanishing as red once again glows in her eyes.

"Kept me under constant watch? I won't be a threat to you, Richard. To do so would be sinking to your pathetic level. Unless, of course, you plan on using your hidden cell to mentally stunt me for the rest of my life at your convenience… Well, if you could, at any rate. I destroyed it earlier, on my way here."

His eyes widen in surprise, seeming truly shocked.

The expression, and the bubbling up of all her negative emotions, becomes too much for Raven, and she quickly finds herself laughing in his face.

"You  _really_  thought yourself so subtle around me that you kept your little  _contingencies_  secret? Something's been wrong for weeks, and imagine my surprise when I found you planning something only Deathstroke could be proud of."

"Raven-"

"I have some friends other than Jinx. With some help, I destroyed every hint of your plans. Not just for me, either. Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Jinx are removed, too, as are a few other people of interest. Your plans are gone, Richard. And I've gotten some guarantees in place."

"What-"

Nightwing's question is cut off as Raven's hand wraps around his throat.

Her eyes narrow to slits as she pulls him through the air towards herself.

Even Cyborg stares in shock at the display of strength, muscles they'd never seen on her before flexing as she brings her former leader off the ground.

He wheezes at the pressure on his windpipe as she pulls him to within an inch of her body.

"If you  _ever_  try putting the plans I've removed, which I've no doubt you've memorized, or any of the remaining plans in your secret folder, into action, very,  _very_  bad things will begin happening. The least of which being the Justice League's attention being brought to your unfitness as a leader. I'm not impressed with them, but they have more than enough authority to remove you. Were it not for the fact that your treachery is currently unrelated to your ability to coordinate missions effectively, this meeting would've occurred with you already in a cell of your own. And that's only in the case of the other Titans. If you hurt my personal friends and loved ones, Richard, I will show you what a  _demon_  I can truly be."

She drops him then, his body immediately backpedaling.

Her statement sends the man reeling, his emotions making him seem almost as broken as Kori.

A small, very vindictive part of her revels in his misery, wishing to make him feel as miserable as she knows her friend to be.

"Richard, if she's tellin' the truth about that, I'm done," Cyborg intones, glaring menacingly at the man.

"So am I. And I'm going to make sure the others find out, too," Beast Boy adds, appearing ready to lunge at the man.

Before he can reply, the monitor between them comes to life as video begins coming through.

When the image resolves in, Doctor Fate's upper body fills the screen.

"Am I… interrupting something?"

"Nah, we were just 'bout done," Cyborg states, Nightwing cringing at his tone. "What can we do for ya', doc?"

"Actually, I was calling to talk to Raven. I unfortunately could not find personal communicator numbers, so I thought this the best way to contact her."

All eyes are on Raven as she moves to stand in front of the monitor, eyebrow raised in question.

"I was recently looking into some things, and I saw a very grim, unpleasant future. What I've been seeing has changed since I saw that, once you started to send the magic in those items out. I feel something great will come from the service you're doing the universe, though it's certainly very beneficial that dangerous items cannot be used by dangerous people anymore."

Nightwing and Zatanna both wince, Cyborg glaring at the pair in response.

"I just thought you should know that your work has been making things better, and not just in an immediate sense."

"And your timing is entirely coincidental, I'm sure… Thank you," Raven responds with a nod, the gratitude in her voice shocking.

"Before I go, I also wanted to tell you that, as you did with the goblet of Erszbet Bathory, some items are better suited dealing with the core of their very existence. Some items cannot be defeated by simply draining them."

"I shall work on my skill, Doctor," she responds with another nod.

With that, the feed cuts off, Nightwing and Zatanna's faces turning redder by the second.

"I-"

Raven turns to face them, her anger clear in her expression.

"Much like Koriand'r, I don't want an apology. I don't want  _anything_  from you, Richard. Your utter humiliation is more than enough."

She quickly jerks something out of her pocket, her communicator seeming to crack under her white-knuckled grip.

With a swipe of her arm, the device lands in Cyborg's outstretched hand.

"Richard, I'm officially resigning from the Titans.  _That_ is what I came here for today. You and Zatanna can go fuck off with your arrogance, that you were so damn right that you didn't even bother checking your facts in my absence."

Cyborg and Beast Boy both stare at her in shock, not remembering ever hearing the psychic curse before.

"Where are you going to go?" Nightwing inquires, cringing at the red glow to her glare.

"I don't have to tell you a damn thing. If you're worried about me becoming a vengeful demon, you can shove it. I know where I'm wanted, and Jinx treats me after several months a  _lot_  better than you have after 7  _years_  of working together."

Her expression softens as it moves to Cyborg.

" _You_  are not included in this statement, Victor. You've been an element that has kept me from not returning at all, for a while now. Should you choose to, you, Kori, and Garfield will not go ignored when contacting me. You'll know where to look if you want to get in touch with me."

The metal man nods, his own expression grim.

"Gonna' have to set up a meet at some point. Haven't seen that girl in ages. I'm glad, for botha' ya'."

"Thank you, Victor. Pass the message to Kori?"

"You should do it," he disagrees.

"I hurt her, too," she states with a shake of her head. "It would be better coming from you."

"Alright… And tell Jinx sorry for me, then. I would've helped her in a heartbeat if I'd known."

A smile creeps across her lips, and his eye widens in shock as she pulls him into a quick hug.

"She knows. See you around, Victor."

Nightwing moves towards her, teeth grit and eyes narrowed.

"Raven, you're not just leaving. You started this damn team, and Doctor Fate notwithstanding, there are still a lot-"

He grunts under the sudden impact, dropping to his knees and gasping for breath.

Raven stands over him with her fist at her side, her soul-self glowing black around her knuckles.

"Do not press your luck, Richard. I should kill you and Zatanna both for what you planned to do to me, and frankly, I would be perfectly justified. My new emotions are, at any rate, far too raw and new to test me any further than I've already allowed. You don't get to have an opinion on my actions."

He remains gasping as she falls into the floor, her portal snapping shut behind her and leaving Cyborg and Beast Boy to glare at their possibly very soon to be ex-leader on the floor…  
 **************************

Raven appears outside of the bookstore, moving unseen through the walls in a series of portals.

When she comes to a stop, she stands next to Jinx, who sits sipping a coffee at a table, removed from anyone's view.

Feeling her lover's presence, Jinx looks up and gasps, immediately shooting to her feet.

"Rae, what happened? Did-"

Raven pulls her into a hug, feeling the burning of her eyes grow worse as she rests her head on the meta's shoulder.

"I am not hurt. Not physically, anyway."

"I'm gonna' kick his ass," Jinx snarls.

"Been there, done that. Let's just go home?" she inquires.

Her tone makes Jinx shudder, the sound not one she wants to hear ever again.

She quickly slaps a bill onto the table and tightens her own hold on the psychic's body.

They fade into the floor, unseen by anyone else, a strange sense of melancholy rippling through the store the only proof they'd been there to begin with…  
 ***************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

This turned out a lot more vindictive than originally intended. I think it's better for it, actually. I didn't think to show the good and the bad of Raven's change, originally. At any rate, I hope you've thoroughly been enjoying yourselves as I have writing it.

Be sure to tell me your thoughts, both on what I've done well and what I haven't. See you all next time, and I'm glad that you're enjoying thus far along with me!


	26. Entrapped

# XXV. Entrapped

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based.

 

_1 year later..._

Raven watches the spell coming at her, an amused smirk coloring her expression.

" _Really_?" she inquires.

Her assailant's eyes narrow as his spell suddenly veers off course, exploding in a shower of black sparks at her side.

As the white glow of her eyes dissipates, she lets her smirk fall somewhat.

"Do not play games with me, Faust. You know why I'm here. Save yourself some pain," she offers.

She floats above the stone floor in the darkened amphitheater, the shadows seeming to coalesce around her form.

The sun, high above them, gives little reprieve from the illusion of darkness in the harsh stone building surrounding their prey.

The man opposite her studies her form, eyes glowing a dark, golden color as he does.

As the rumors have said, the former Titan is distinctly different in both appearance and personality to when she was their secret weapon.

Where her former uniform had been a shade of blue almost dark enough to be black, the cloak and leotard she wears now is a pure, pristine white.

Most jarring, though, is the change in her body itself.

The brilliant, ruby specks in her violet gaze reminds Felix Faust of encounters long past and creatures better forgotten.

This thought is amplified by the jagged, gleaming black claws hanging from the ends of her fingers, seeming sharp enough to rend flesh with ease.

A shining, silver necklace in the shape of an ankh hangs from a thick chain around her neck, and the way it floats on a wind he does not feel sets him on edge.

Gritting his teeth, he grips the staff in his hand more tightly, his knuckles going white from the pressure.

Something nags at his senses, and a small smile creeps along his face, reminding Raven of a snake.

" _You're_  here. That implies a singular entity. A solo assault for your cause. Interesting."

With a flourish, he raises the staff high into the air and swings it in a powerful arc.

As it moves, a brilliant golden glow surrounds the gem resting atop the precious metal.

When he comes to a halt, a ray of power blasts outward, turning the air to steam as it passes towards the shadows.

A figure rolls out of its path, brilliant pink light making itself known before it again vanishes into the thick shadows.

"You have a friend, it seems," he muses, eyes casting about in search of the psychic's rumored teammate.

"Could've been a cat," Raven replies with a shrug. "I hardly need help from a mysterious guardian angel to beat you, even with that item you stole."

At that, he turns his attention back to her with hate burning in his gaze.

"Is that so? You seem to be quite assured of what you know of such an ancient item as this," he growls.

Raven snorts, wondering at how easily the sorcerer is distracted.

" _All the items we've gotten from them, and they're still so cocky. Amazing_ ," she laughs mentally.

The year since her departure with the Titans has been a very beneficial one, even as the heist investigation has not yet come to an end.

Once she gained the D.M.A.'s resources, Jinx's team had become a force in the retrieval and investigation of the objects of power and their heists.

It certainly helped that just under eighty percent of the stolen items had remained not only in America, but almost entirely within the half of the country the women's home resides.

"Ancient staff, supposedly the very one fabled in the Journey to the West. All very impressive, but I feel that if it was really Sun Wukong's weapon, the King would've come for it a long time ago," Raven deadpans.

His eyes widen, staring between the weapon and the psychic.

" _More informed than I thought. This must end now_ ," Faust thinks.

As he goes over plans on how to best distract her so to land a devastating blow, he misses the pink, sparking light taking form in the shadows directly behind him.

By the time his mind takes notice and sends him to action, the hexbolt slams home.

He groans as the staff is blown free from his hand, spiraling quickly through the air with smoke rising from the metal.

As he attempts diving to grab it back, a solid mass of black light forms and wraps around the weapon.

When he begins backpedaling out of his charge, the glowing hand quivers and another beam of the blackness slides free.

He moans in pain as a small fist of energy backhands him in the stomach, sending him tumbling through the air and into the stone behind him.

The staff quickly finds its way to Raven's hand, and she grins as Jinx emerges from the shadows, her feline, pink eyes glowing.

Groaning, Faust pushes himself back to his feet.

Shaking his head to clear the spots filling his vision, he glares at the women standing before him.

"Foolish. Too easily distracted. Won't happen again, I assure you."

He quickly raises a hand towards them, and they watch as his blue robes violently begin whipping around his body.

Black mist begins forming about his feet, and Raven meets the red-eyed gaze of what lay within.

" _Surge, bestiarum tenebrarum_!" he chants.

The mist solidifies, and the women stare on as three ugly, furry creatures wreathed in living shadows take form.

Dark, blood-red eyes stare back at the women, fangs seeming made of smoke and flames flickering in and out of view.

A grumbling, throaty roar sounds from the beasts, and Faust smirks as they begin advancing on the women.

His mirth vanishes when Raven's own eyes turn the same color, and the little light penetrating the stone shell around them leeches away from her body.

" _ **Conculco**_ ," she snarls.

Her voice seems to make the very air around them vibrate, and with a whine reminiscent of mere dogs, the shadowy creatures stop their movements and lean back on their hind legs.

Smiling at them, she points her index finger at Faust, and he visibly pales as they turn on their summoner.

"What? How-"

"You really need to keep up on things," Jinx laughs, leaning her head on Raven's shoulder.

"Indeed. Hellhounds are not the best advised weapon to use against me," the psychic adds in her normal voice.

As the beasts lunge through the air at him, he waves his hands, and their forms dissolve.

The last disappears just as his fangs begin to tear into the stringy sorcerer, and he falls backward with a grunt as it vanishes.

Raven appears overtop of him, an eyebrow raised in amusement even as her hellish, red eyes, now numbering four, stare down at him.

"Now, if you would, professor, I'll get out of your… well, not hair, obviously, but I'll leave you to your devices when you tell me who's behind the heists."

He glares up at her, his headdress slanted and comically covering his face.

" _Vade ad infern-"_

A foot suddenly comes down atop his shoulder, a sickening  _crunch_ sounding.

"None of that, now. Just tell me what I want to know. I'm sure you'd prefer someone else be going through this humiliation," Raven states.

Groaning, he clutches at his shattered shoulder, eyes tearing up.

"Wotan. I've stolen nothing, he's the one that gave me and a number of others what we seek. Go bug him," he says between gasps of pain.

Nodding her head, Raven floats back to her lover's side, her eyes returning to their natural form.

" _Obliviscor_ ," she whispers.

The sorcerer's eyes glaze over, and by the time he awakens to gaze at his surroundings in utter confusion, the women are gone.

Just as his memories of the staff, their fight, and the breaks in his shoulder are…  
 ****************************************

"So… Wotan, huh? Isn't he a pretty heavy hitter? Shouldn't he, I dunno, be somewhere more mystical than Jump?" Jinx inquires.

The women move along the rooftops of Jump City, both of them simultaneously pleased to be home and unhappy about the potential risks.

"The man has a very similar aura to Doctor Fate's. We're just going where his residue on the staff takes us," Raven responds with a shrug.

"Fair 'nough. Doesn't seem all that different, huh?"

The two pause in their travel to look around the city, melancholy rising up.

In their year since Raven's resignation, the two have found themselves very rarely able to enjoy their home together, always out somewhere hunting for an object of power.

The long time outside of Jump has meant no run-ins with the Titans while doing their job, something both women were perfectly content with given the developments following her departure.

It has also meant no small amount of homesickness, however.

"When we get this done, what do you say we head to the Angelique? It's been a long while. They might not even remember us," Raven states.

Jinx stares at her lover, floating cross-legged in the air around her.

"Somehow, I doubt that. Kinda' hard to forget us," the hex caster laughs.

"True enough. Is that a yes?"

Grinning, Jinx leans forward and plants a kiss on her.

"You have to ask?"

"It's a date, then."

"Yep. So this guy's like Fate? That's not good, right?"

The man had been the only League Member their team had worked with in their retrievals, taking items deemed too dangerous to handle or destroy on three separate occasions.

The first time she'd met the man in person, Jinx had been terrified that any being could live with the raw, magical power that he seemed to be made from.

That Wotan is similar is not a pleasant thought.

"It could be bad," Raven agrees. "On the other hand, this is huge. If Wotan's a supplier-"

"Then he'd probably be high up with whoever's behind all this. Ya' know, I really just can't wait for this crap to be over so we can actually relax a bit."

"Like Steel'd let that happen," Raven snorts.

"So, what do you think? Should we call someone in?"

"Hmm… Think I could send a beacon without calling Wotan to us?" Raven asks, pondering on what range the villain can sense.

"If he's like Fate, I'm gonna' guess not. Who knows if he's going to move or attack? Well… Shall we, then?" Jinx sighs.

With a nod, they continue towards the docks, the staff vanishing in a pool of black once Raven is sure of the man's presence.

They quickly move to the ground, and move like shadows towards a boathouse.

As soon as they reach the sides of the entrance to the structure, though, a realization sets in.

It may be the way Wotan stands idly in the building, staring right at them that tips them off.

More probably, it's the large, cruel grin adorning his lips that lets the women know they were lured.

Raven grabs Jinx's hand and begins to vanish in a bubble of soul-self.

Before they can complete the transition, though, a hand wraps itself in her cape and they are harshly jerked onto the wooden docks.

"Your troublesomeness certainly outweighs your intelligence. Else you would not have come looking to die from one as powerful as I," Wotan mocks.

The women move away from the sorcerer, his grin revealing a series of fangs that glint in the sunlight.

"And I'd suggest not turning tail, demonling. You aren't the only one who can transverse dimensions with a mere thought."

"Did I hear him say we're troublesome?" Jinx asks with a grin.

"Make no mistake, you  _are_  irritants to our plans," Wotan states. "Hence why I made sure to not shapeshift with those I supplied objects to. You would eventually find me. That you were foolish enough to come to me without aid is more than I expected, though."

Raven's eyes narrow, and the red in her gaze glows brighter.

"We probably should've considered that," Jinx muses with a grimace.

"Gizmo will never let us hear the end of this," Raven groans, her agreement clear.

Jinx drops into a low stance, her fists rising to be in front of her face.

Pink light begins flowing around her body, and her eyes become like lenses of the color.

"Don't suppose you brought us here because you're secretly displeased with your employer?" she asks through grit teeth.

Wotan laughs, the sound almost causing the women to shiver.

"Nothing of the sort. You are a minor irritant. However, you are irritants nonetheless. Even with a full year of your work together, and gaining strength, if the reports I've read are proper gauges, you two are insects in my shadow."

His grin widens, and they tense as his body lifts from the ground.

"Azarath Metrion Zin-"

Raven's chant is cut off as a wave of light leaves the sorcerer, the ground where she'd stood liquefying.

A series of waves follows the first strike, sending Raven into an aerial dance to avoid certain death.

With every dodge, the margin gets narrower, and both Raven and Jinx go to work with creating a plan.

As the newest wave comes at her, Raven sends a fist of her soul-self into the body of the attack.

The energies collide, and a brilliant explosion sets off, blinding both herself and the dark mage.

Jinx uses the moment and throws a ball of pink flames at him, the air crackling and smoking in its wake.

Just before her large hexbolt lands, though, Wotan's body shifts.

Her jaw drops open as his body splits in the center, leaving a hole large enough for her attack to pass harmlessly through.

As his skin knits seamlessly back together, the solid bad luck collides with the wall, and a loud  _groan_  sounds.

In seconds, a metal beam bends and snaps downward, the brunt of its weight coming down directly on top of the pink-haired meta.

Before she becomes crushed, though, a bubble of blackness surrounds her body, and in a blink she finds herself at her lover's side.

"That didn't work."

"No, it certainly didn't, whelps," Wotan laughs. "I believe it's my turn, now."

As his eyes glow with power, the women notice for the first time a golden necklace coiled beneath his head.

The necklace takes on an ugly, red hue, and sparks the color of old blood begin leaping from his entire form.

"Morgan Le Fey's necklace packs  _quite_  the punch, I must say. Don't know  _how_  she managed to lose something so potent."

The name sets warning bells off in Raven's mind, and a shield of soul-self slams into existence around them.

A second later, his attack unleashes, and Raven groans under the impact.

Her body begins sliding backwards as she throws her physical strength in with the mental, pushing as much as she can into the barrier.

And yet, Jinx watches in horror as the shield begins to fracture and crack, even as she applies her own power to it as well.

"What the hell!?"

Raven doesn't respond to her cry, her body trembling under the weight of the power pushing towards them.

She grabs onto Jinx's arm with a shaky hand, and the two are immediately swallowed in a black pool, just as her barrier explodes.

When they rise up, their hands are linked and their power flows like magma in retaliation at the sorcerer.

Grinning, he spins to face them.

Even as he begins to show signs of his own fatigue, their attack is blown to pieces when he utters ugly, guttural noises and throws a disk of gold into its center.

"I'll admit, you put up better challenge than was expected," Wotan sighs. "I might even have a fight to contend with were it not for the witch's necklace supplying me with all the energy I could need."

"So who's backing all this?" Raven inquires. "Certainly not the hag."

"Know respect for your elders and superiors, demonling," Wotan hisses, his eyes narrowed on her.

"Well, you brought us here to kill us, so I mean, it's not like satisfying our curiosity would kill ya'," Jinx adds as she catches on to her lover's plan.

"Very true, but I won't answer you all the same. Honestly, even I do not know more than suspicions of who organizes us."

"You guys don't seem very  _organized_ ," Raven challenges, hoping he misses the slight glow between their palms.

"Well, that's to be expected. We are many, all hired for the same goal, to serve unknown financial backers looking for the objects we collect. It's naturally bound to be chaotic in nature, yes?"

Wotan's eyes suddenly narrow, and he frowns in thought, as if something bothers him.

Only Jinx seems to notice the small smile curving her lover's lips, the expression so subtle only she is capable of picking up on it.

That does not, however, mean that she can decipher the cause of such an expression at such a terrible time.

But Wotan doesn't miss the pinkish cast to her gaze, and his teeth bare themselves in angered warning.

"To be expected, I suppose, demonling. Are your  _inclinations_  how you've destroyed such a large chunk of the objects we sought? How you've pushed the goal back by more than a year?"

Raven smirks at that, the red hue to her eyes burning clearly now.

"Goal you say? Interesting. I've no idea what inclinations you mean, though. Azarath Metrion  _ **Zinthos**_!"

The women's connected hands come up in a fast whipping motion, and a large raven made of fire shoots outward.

Black and pink light spiral and mesh within the raven's form as it flies at the sorcerer.

It is the four burning, glowing red eyes on its skull that gives Wotan warning of the fatality of its collision.

As it meets with his body, a wall of green light explodes into existence, pressing the psychic weapon back.

Raven's eyes narrow in concentration, and more of her power flows into the attack.

As her barrier before had quickly begun to crack, so too does Wotan's shield quickly succumb to the force of her soul-self.

But more of the ugly language begins rolling from the sorcerer's mouth, and Raven's eyes widen in horror at what begins happening.

As he speaks, their weapon begins to expand and grow, large sparks of black and pink bursting from its body.

Everywhere the sparks hit, the boathouse and docks begin to warp and bend, seeming to shift through realities.

"Raven?"

Jinx's scared tone matches the emotions rolling around in her own mind, and she immediately cuts the power off from her namesake.

Wotan looks at the damage around him, a grin adorning his face even as large beads of sweat roll around his skin.

He points at the women, and another wave rises from Morgan Le Fey's necklace.

The red glow of Raven's gaze intensifies, and with a powerful sweep of her fist, his attack is knocked off course by soul-self.

She then sends her own attack at the man, bursts of pink light accompanying it.

And so it continues, the dock slowly breaking and shattering as the trio continues their fight.

For a small eternity, their exhaustion seems to be matched, even as their attacks lose none of their potency.

And then, something shifts, and the women realize that the necklace is keeping Wotan on a much higher level of stamina than either of them have.

The tide changes, and Raven notices how reality continues warping around them on the docks as they continue.

"We… can't… keep this up," Jinx gasps, just as she comes up from her recent backflip.

Ravens' response is interrupted as Wotan's spell throws a blade of his energy for her head, aiming to decapitate her.

Even as she manages to dodge it, the blade manages to tear a line from her shoulder, blood quickly sliding down her arm.

Cursing, Raven wraps a bubble of her psyche around her lover and herself, and a mass of black in the form of another raven shoots skyward.

Before they manage to make any distance, or come up with a good strategy, the ugly voice sounds once more.

And Raven's retreat cuts off, another curse sounding from her lips.

The women float in the air at the edge of the glowing grey bubble, knowing that they're truly ensnared...  
 ****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Sun Wukong is the Monkey King, a character in the Chinese fable  _Journey to the West_.

Surge, bestiarum tenebrarum- Latin for "Rise, beasts of darkness"

Conculco- Latin for "Heel" (verb)

Obliviscor- Latin for "forget"

So that's the start to the second half of the story. The second half will have at least some elements of Hellblazer, and it's going to get a bit darker from here. 

Hope you're all enjoying the story so far! Whether you are or aren't, let me know! See you next time.


	27. Storm on the Horizon

# XXVI. Storm on the Horizon

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

The women stare at the energy bubble.

Neither tries to hit it, and yet they both know doing so would end poorly.

With a curse, Raven sets her bubble down once more on the docks, her soul-self evaporating in a thick cloud of black smoke.

As soon as their feet are on the ground, Wotan sends a blast of thick, black vapors at them.

They float high into the air the same moment the attack lands, turning the wood where they had stood into rotted black chunks.

"Umm… Can you do anything like that?" Jinx asks, watching the melted dock drip down into the waters below.

Raven looks at the damage with a thoughtful light to her expression.

"Perhaps. Not really the time to test new waters, unfortunately."

The air explodes with an echoing  _snap_ , and Raven immediately pushes into her girlfriend's side.

Their bodies vanish into her portal as Wotan's attack lands, the edge of Raven's cloak flickering into bright orange fire.

They rematerialize behind the sorcerer, Raven's soul-self already forming to tightly wrap around his body.

There's a bare flicker of discomfort against the crushing force, and Wotan gives a small chuckle.

" _ **Fulmen hasta**_!"

Raven's soul-self immediately pulls away from him, taking the form of a thick black dome over the women.

Just as it takes its curved form, a blast of black lightning arcs down from the sky and slams into the shield.

Raven grunts under the immense pressure, and with a grunt of effort pushes her shield into a higher angle.

Sweat breaks out on her brow as the magic lightning is redirected into the docks below.

Seeing the struggle, Jinx tightens her hold on the half-demon's shoulder and pushes her own hex magic into her.

The shield flashes with a pulse of pink light, and the lightning cuts off with a booming explosion in the sky.

Raven takes a calming breath, and her eyes begin glowing slightly red as they focus on the sorcerer.

"Shall we?" she inquires.

Jinx's eyes gain a bright pink glow of their own, and she nods, her gaze never leaving the Chaos Lord.

"Let's," the meta agrees while grabbing her lover's hand.

A ball of dark pink light surrounds them, centered between their connected fingers.

"Azarath Metrion  _Zinthos_!"

Wotan watches as a spike of black leaves the women's hands.

" _Cīranā_ ," Jinx adds.

After advancing towards him several paces, a blast of pink moves through, and his eyes widen as thousands of sparking blades of soul-self begin weaving towards him.

His eyes narrow in a harsh glare as he goes on the defensive, dodging their attack with surprising effort.

Her metahuman eyes tracking his every movement, Jinx brings her free hand up and follows him with a pointed index finger.

Her fingertip glows like a star, and with a grin, she brings her energy to bear.

" _Fulmen hasta_ ," she calls out, echoing his previous spell.

Wotan's head snaps to the side as Raven's astral spikes send him right into Jinx's counter-attack.

The black lightning comes down from the sky, moving to destroy the evil mage down to his very atoms.

As she wields the spell, Jinx's mind realizes what it is, and just how amazing Raven's resistance to the primal, chaotic force really is.

Wotan, however, seems only slightly impressed, from all she can gather from his response.

He flicks his hand towards the incoming strike, and his eyes flash into pure, green lenses.

" _ **Cȏpula**_!" he shouts.

Jinx's eyes widen as the power is wrested utterly from her control with the word, the sudden change leaving her trembling against Raven's side.

Before Raven can say anything, the black lightning curves in the air and begins moving fast towards the women like a snake.

The half-demon immediately pulls her soul-self away from their enemy and into the attack, the spikes coiling around the energy as though it's solid.

Her efforts slow the strike, until Wotan pushes more of his power into it.

Jinx, seeing the sudden increase in size of the lightning bolt, immediately reacts.

Her hand wraps around Raven's midsection, and she throws her body weight against her.

The women tumble out of the air, and fortunately the lightning's path as well.

As they fall, Jinx's hand opens, and as soon as it forms, a ball of her hex energy flies into the core of the lightning.

Pink light spreads through the energy, and the attack is cancelled out the same time they crash painfully into the dock.

"Ugh… Okay, we picked a bad fight," Jinx groans.

"You've no idea, whelps," Wotan laughs, suddenly standing only steps away from them.

" _Whelps_?  _Really_? How old are you, exactly?" Jinx asks with a laugh.

"A better question. How did you so easily duplicate my spell?" he demands.

"I learn quick and had a good teacher," the meta states with a shrug. "Prob'ly has somethin' to do with having a bit of chaos, myself."

With a huff, Raven forces herself back to her feet, her eyes now glowing bright scarlet.

"Azarath  _Metrion_ _ **Zinthos**_!"

Her hand lashes out, and Wotan is taken aback by the very physical assault.

Black smoke rises from both her knuckles and the spot on his chest where she connects.

He glares up at her from his spot on the ground, nearly half the dock's length away from where he'd stood.

"We're done," she intones.

The next second, Raven's entire body pulses with red light.

Like ink washing out from paper, her skin loses its grey quality in favor of the blood-red that takes its place.

Four glowing, hellish eyes glare at Wotan, and her muscles slowly expand as she flexes.

Her feet spread apart, and her hands come together, overlapping in front of her glare.

Her palms, along with her eyes and cloak, flood with a dark, obsidian glow, and Wotan quickly rises to his full height as he prepares for her attack.

When she uses her incantation this time, the dock rumbles beneath her, and with a shiver Jinx ponders how glad she is to have never been on the bad side of her girlfriend's power since they were both teenagers.

A massive spike of black sparks launches from her hands, the air humming as it passes.

Much to Wotan's surprise, however, it curves upwards as it moves, slamming right into his barrier.

As she pours more energy into her soul-self, the wood begins to warp around them.

Finally, reality begins to twist as her astral self imposes itself on their world, the water around them flickering between spouts of lava and pools of deep, dark obsidian sky.

The air where her mind meets the barrier begins to visibly tremble, and Jinx's eyes widen as Wotan's barrier becomes a very visible, green bubble of light.

Said bubble then, with an echoing  _crack_ , explodes apart around her demonic assault.

The spike moves instantly through the hole and into the air, no force resisting it now.

Shaking her head, Jinx pushes back into action and rushes the thoroughly distracted sorcerer.

Wotan's eyes glow, and he throws his own power into closing the barrier, not realizing the intent of Raven's assault until it is too late.

Realizing their window to escape is much too small, Raven's hands snap closed.

The tip of her spike explodes outward, not unlike a blooming flower made of pure nightmares.

Her beacon expands through the air, pulsing through several minds, just as she intended.

Raven continues sending out her power, though, on noticing her lover's rapid approach.

Before Wotan's focus can shift, the meta's hand glows bright pink and she reaches him.

In a matter of seconds, her hand slices through the chain around his neck and grabs onto the necklace.

She immediately moves into a number of somersaults backward, evading the meager effort he can afford to put into trying to retrieve the item from her.

The docks show the marks of her escape, wood splintered wherever her jump narrowly avoided his magical strikes.

Finally, she reaches Raven's side, and the half-demon's exhaustion shows through.

With a gasp, the red leaves her skin in the same manner that it appeared, her eyes fading back to solid violet.

"Are you-?"

Raven interrupts her lover's concerned inquiry when she wheezes, her body hunching over.

She leans against Jinx's side, the effort of calling on her blood much more tiring than it should be.

The meta human notices Wotan eyeing the weakened half-demon with a glare, and she immediately steps in front of her.

"Jinx-"

"You did good, Rae," she says with a smirk. "Let me have some exercise for a bit, 'kay?"

Normally, the protective tone in her girlfriend's voice would've made Raven feel somewhat weak, the same as she would expect were the roles reversed.

As she currently  _is_  weak, though, she just gives her a small nod of confirmation and focuses on deep breathing.

"Be careful," she intones.

Seeming to have not heard her, Jinx's eyes begin glowing a brilliant shade of pink as she stares at their enemy.

Wotan's own gaze burns in a halo of angry light, and he points at the cloaked psychic.

" _ **Conteratur**_ ," he intones, his voice echoing through the air.

The air in front of his open palm shimmers as if a heat mirage runs through it.

The shimmering quality expands, and Jinx throws her own hands up in the air with pink sparks flooding the dock.

The air shimmers around her own body, as well, then.

When the two forces collide, sparks of pink lightning begin setting parts of the dock alight.

" _ **Mukaranā!**_ "

The flames around them explode into massive blazes, glowing a dark red as both of their energies are sucked into them.

The air stops shimmering then, and the flames, sensing the disappearance of their food, vanish with a series of hisses.

Wotan stares down at her with a sneer, his hands coming together in a series of booming  _clap_ s.

"I did not expect that level of resistance. Perhaps your boast of being a fellow Chaos user was not so far from the truth, after all. All the same, let's see how long you can maintain that, though."

A sense of dread runs through Jinx, and she takes a step closer to Raven.

" _Dĭrimere_!"

The dock violently begins shaking beneath their feet, Jinx's eyes going wide at the sensation.

She watches as something rushes towards her, the invisible force ripping wood in its path as though parting a sea on its way to hit her.

Gritting her teeth, Jinx leans down and places her hands on the dock.

"Hope I've learned as much as I think, or this'll get ugly real fast, Rae.  _Surgere, indomitus_ _ **impedimentum**_!"

A bubble very similar to Wotan's bursts into existence, completely surrounding the women in a thick wall of pink light.

Jinx's eyes narrow as the force approaches, her entire body tensed for the impact.

When the energies collide, a blinding light explodes outward, completely filling Wotan's barrier to the point of even those outside the illusion being capable of seeing it.

Even with her sight robbed, Jinx feels the attack pressing down on her, looking for any weakness in her defense to slip past and kill them.

She closes her eyes, as much for concentration as to stop the pain, and focuses on dismantling the attack while keeping her resistance up.

Even exhausted and blinded, Raven is amazed with the progress her pupil has made, considering many of their educational sessions over the year had tended to get sidetracked.

Nonetheless, she feels the moment that her girlfriend's strength, spurred on by the amulet still clutched in her fist, starts to give under the pressure.

The attacking force is considerably less powerful due to her machinations, but the split of her attention means that so, too, is her barrier.

Raven feels it, the moment that the force manages to slip inside, intent on killing her love.

It doesn't even cross her mind as a thought when she throws herself at Jinx's side in much the same manner that had saved their lives not moments ago.

The barrier falls, and Raven immediately feels the force biting into her.

Her mind screams out as the being, some agent of pure death and destruction, begins to slip its miasma into her blood.

She falls to the ground in a limp, bleeding pile of limbs as the attack expends itself, all her remaining power focused on snuffing out Wotan's poisonous, invading life-force.

Jinx's sight returns the same moment that her love falls to the docks, blood slowly oozing from her forehead.

The gem in her chakra gives an insidious, black glow, and even as panic sets in over Raven's injuries, she realizes that to do that much damage to the half-demon would have meant certain death for herself.

Wotan sneers at them, approaching with purposeful footsteps towards them along the dock.

Jinx's eyes narrow to slits as he steps closer, seeming to be pure lenses of pink lightning.

"Back.  _Away_ ," she snarls.

He just gives an amused chuckle in response, not so much as pausing in his advance.

"Demons are really a robust species, aren't they? You would've been nothing but ash taking that hit," he quips.

His hands begin to glow, and Jinx immediately moves to block him from getting anywhere near Raven.

"Do not bare your teeth at me, whelp. She had more of a chance at besting me, and she's not currently in any condition to even try," he mocks.

In response, she points at him with a hand wrapped in a spiral of inky, dark red energy.

"And then you hurt her.  _Bad move_ ," she hisses.

With a harsh jerk of her arm, the energy disperses in a large, pointed wave.

The dock catches aflame in its path, the wood warping and falling in black chunks to the waters below.

Wotan's eyes widen at the chaotic energy pulsing through the air, and his distraction is exactly what Jinx hoped for.

With a pointed finger, a tiny bullet of hex energy shoots into the center of the wave.

For a second, the wave violently spasms and trembles, and then it explodes on the sorcerer.

Pink smoke and sparks floods the air as Wotan is thrown backward, slamming into his barrier with a  _crunch_.

For a small eternity, all is silent save for Raven's pained gasping and the meta's panting.

Trembling, she falls to her lover's side, putting an arm around the likewise shaking psychic.

The glow vanishes from her eyes, the heavy use of her magic finally draining her.

Even as Wotan rises angrily to his feet, the meta does nothing but hold onto Raven.

"You did good, Nicole," Raven gasps, one eye cracked open despite the whimpers of pain it tears from her.

Wotan floats high above the hole Jinx's attack has left in the dock, his eyes burning with energy.

"You've tried my final bit of patience, whelps."

Even as she watches their deaths approach, Jinx can only smirk at the clear signs of damage she's left on the sorcerer, half of his face covered in soot and his entire body giving off clouds of inky pink smoke.

"I love you, Raven," she sighs, carefully lying down next to the psychic.

"Love… you too," said half-demon wheezes, giving the meta a sad smile.

Their hands clasp together as Wotan finally reaches them, his body towering over them.

It is then that Jinx seriously considers the possibility of some divine being watching over them, the same time that Wotan's barrier is shattered in an explosion of golden light...  
 ************************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Fulmen- Latin: "Lightning striking"

Hasta- Latin: "Lance"

Cīranā- Hindi: "Split"

Cȏpula- Latin: "Leash"

Conteratur- Latin: "Be crushed"

Mukaranā- Hindi "Negation"

Dĭrimere- Latin: "Destroy"

Surgere- Latin: "Rise"

Indomitus- Latin: "Indomitable"

Impedimentum- Latin: "Barrier"

I'm writing with the theory that, in a year of working together, Raven would've taught Jinx a lot of tricks, which means she doesn't just throw around hex bolts anymore. So look forward to learning more random foreign words, because A) I'm a linguistics nerd, and B) the trope of English not being a good language for spells is something I notice is pretty common in the DC Universe.

Be sure to let me know what you think so far of the story. See you all next time!


	28. Homecoming

# XXVII. Homecoming

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Wotan and Jinx's gaze both snap upward, to where the top of his barrier had previously been.

In its place, a man garbed in a blue jumpsuit with shining, golden accents floats in the air.

Even with the brilliant, white glow covering what lies within the eye slits in his mask, Wotan can feel his enemy's glare on him.

With his attention focused on Doctor Fate, the worn-down sorcerer fails to notice the other mage that came with him.

He does, however, notice the column of fire that wraps around him.

So, too, does he notice that the flames are not those of any mortal realm, the column burning dark red and slamming him into a warehouse wall with a concussive force.

"Where's the harpy?" a gruff voice demands.

Wotan's eyes narrow on the short creature, seemingly made of pure muscle, at the end of the flames.

Orange, lensed eyes glare at the sorcerer, his demonic features cast into hideous contrast from the flickering lights of his hellfire.

"That is enough, Etrigan," Doctor Fate states.

With a huff, the demon cuts off the feed of his power, the hellfire leaving an acrid smell in the air in its absence.

"Thank you," Jinx gasps, her trembling not letting her get to her feet just yet despite her sudden need to cheer.

"Raven's call came through, as did Wotan's spell that kept him hidden slip. It was a simple decision, though evidently it was late in coming," Fate's voice says, seeming to echo from his helmet.

Grinning, Jinx mustered up enough strength to pull Raven into a tight hug.

"You did  _real_  good, Rae!" she cheers.

"Feh. I'm just here because I felt the harpy," Etrigan claims.

Doctor Fate lands next to the fallen sorcerer wreathed in an ankh made of golden light.

"Now then, Wotan, it seems you're a part of whatever force is threatening the balance of this realm. This, I cannot allow. You will tell me who is behind all of these thefts, or you will find your punishment grandly worse than what you've experienced before."

Wotan sneers at his long-time foe, eyes narrowed with his hate.

He opens his mouth to speak, the power crackling through the air around him immediately warning Fate.

" _ **Perturbãtiō canere**_ ," the sorcerer hisses.

The ankh around Fate brightens as waves of pure black come rushing at him, even the Helm of Nabu's sight not able to pierce the darkness.

The waves expand and form a bubble around Wotan, obscuring him from any of their gazes.

When at last the spot becomes clear once more, Wotan is no longer in their presence, small flames marking where he'd stood.

With a huff of frustration, Doctor Fate turns his full attention on the women.

The feeling of his gaze causes the meta to bristle, and with grit teeth, she slowly forces herself to sit upright.

She grimaces as Etrigan steps close to her, his eyes narrowed on her clenched hand.

"You," he starts while wagging a clawed finger in her face, "give me tha' amulet,  _now_. Le Fey's wha' brought me here, not your ill-fated spat, and I'm takin' that for my troubles."

Jinx's eyes narrow on him, his orange, fiery gaze not so much as sending a tremor through her after the display her lover put on.

"You  _do_  need to give up the amulet. Magic like that can't be allowed to roam around to get recaptured," Fate adds, now standing near the demon.

Raven whimpers at Jinx's side, and she levels a glare on both of the men.

"First, I'm using the power in this thing to fix her. I don't have the energy to do a damn thing, and she'll die if I don't. You got any objections, you can shove it."

Not waiting for either of their responses, she turns to Raven and, very carefully, presses the small silver amulet against her chakra gem.

Immediately, the gem flares obsidian, even as Jinx's entire body glows neon pink.

The amulet crackles with sparks of her magic, and the meta winces as it pulls on her power to initiate her spell.

Raven begins shivering violently on the ground as black and pink tendrils of light begin mixing and coiling around each other.

Gritting her teeth, Jinx places her free hand on Raven's forehead.

The psychic's eyes snap open to reveal lenses of purple fire.

Jinx's eyes narrow in concentration, and the amulet becomes even brighter with her power, becoming a supernova of pink around her fist and the chakra gem.

" _ **Maiṁ tumakō, bē'īmānī sē bhāpa nirvāsita!**_ " the meta screams.

A solid bolt of pink light arcs from the amulet into the gem, which quickly takes on the same color.

As it does, the amulet begins glowing black as every piece of Wotan's energy is forcefully pulled out of her lover.

The amulet grows hot in Jinx's hand, but she forces herself to not let the pain distract her until it's done.

When the last bit of the sorcerer's poison is gone from Raven, Jinx immediately drops the amulet and cuts off the power going into Raven.

Spots appear in her gaze at the sensation of pulling on more power than she had, and she slumps weakly onto the dock.

"There…  _now…_  you can take… the damn amulet," she wheezes while pulling Raven to her.

Raven's eyes, which are now a pure indigo once more, look at her exhausted lover.

"That was…  _quite_  impressive," Fate muses.

As the amulet floats upwards into his hands, Raven gives a nod and finds that, without the poison, she once more has at least enough energy to sit up.

"I have a  _very_  gifted partner," she responds.

Smiling softly, she pulls Jinx into her arms, letting her head rest on her lap while making something akin to  _purr_ ing noises.

Etrigan ignores them, instead focusing his glare on Doctor Fate.

"The necklace belongs to tha' blasted harpy. That means it can lead me right to 'er, which means it's  _mine_ ," he hisses.

Fate meets the demon's gaze with what could only be surmised, by Raven at least, as mild boredom.

"The amulet, in the wrong hands, of which such a category would include Morgan Le Fey, mind you, can grant eternal youth and an omnipotent locater. It can also be the key to the locks on various items that are dangerous enough that even Nabu can only seal them away."

"That  _isn't_ _ **my**_  problem, mage," the demon growls.

In response, Fate places his hand against the amulet as a small burst of light forms in his palm.

He proceeds to pinch his thumb and index finger together, and Raven watches in curiosity as a strand of golden light takes form between the digits.

He pulls the strand out from the amulet and, and as soon as it's free it takes the form of a small, round nugget of gold.

"Here, take this," he states before throwing it to the demon's waiting palm.

"I cannot risk Morgan Le Fey retrieving the amulet, but I think that that's what you're really looking for any way."

Etrigan scoffs even as his hand tightly fists around the nugget.

"Fair enough. I'll hope I don't  _enjoy your company_ any near time, mage."

With a snap of his fingers, a spiral of bright orange flames pops into existence at his side.

Just before he steps through, a thoughtful look takes over his expression.

Etrigan's fiery portal suddenly stutters, and he turns back to face the women.

"You best be careful, witch," he growls with his index finger pointed at Raven.

A strange sense of foreboding takes hold in the empath's mind, and her sudden tension isn't missed by Jinx, even as she relaxes against her lover.

"We'll be more cautious in the future."

"Yes, you will. But I'm talking about something else. Keep your eyes on the shadows, I hear talk of some wayward relatives that've been comin' from the woodwork recently."

"…Okay, then. More of Merlin's work?"

At that, a grin creeps across the demon's face, a shiver visibly rolling through Raven as she sits up straighter.

"Not  _my_  relatives, witch."

With a deep, rumbling chuckle, the flames swallow his body, and the women find themselves alone on the dock once more.

Jinx stares at her lover, something visibly changing in her.

"Raven?"

She watches as her mind goes to work. Usually, it's a fascinating thing to watch, but her instincts insist on telling her that this is nothing good.

Her gaze hardens, and Raven violently shakes her head.

With a huff, Jinx joins her lover as they rise to their feet, both of them unpleased with how much effort the rise takes.

"I'm fine. Well, relatively speaking, anyway. We'll talk about it in a more private setting?"

Jinx nods in agreement, slowly winding her arm around her lover's waist.

Both women smile as Raven's tension is leeched away, her body molding to the meta's side.

"Thank you greatly for the help," Raven intones to Doctor Fate. "It was much-needed and very appreciated."

Instead of the acceptance she expects, Raven is surprised to feel the man's eyes narrow on her.

"You really shouldn't put the good work you're both doing at risk so recklessly. You knew your quarry was Wotan. Calling for aid would have been better to start with, instead of after you almost left this world."

Raven winces, her grimace deepening when Jinx gives her a satisfied grin.

"You are correct. Perhaps you were right to begin with, Jinx," she adds to her lover. "I may have become too assured with the last year of dealing with, well, not  _weaklings_ , per se, but certainly not someone on that level…"

"Admitting you were wrong is a step," Jinx laughs, her arm wrapping around the embarrassed psychic's stomach.

"Indeed. As I said, you've been doing good work. But it is clear, now, that they are fully aware of your hunt. If Wotan was lying in wait for you, then their strongest forces will be coming out more. Best you two be more careful with your retrievals onward."

"Agreed," Raven nods.

"Also, I need to let this incident be known. The Justice League, and the other teams out in the world, need to know what they're potentially dealing with. While you two have certainly meant a great deal can return to their daily lives, it only gets more dangerous from now."

Something about his tone tells Raven that he's not just speaking in hypotheticals, and the slight glow in the eyes of his mask confirm her theory.

"Try not to make us out to be too incompetent, if you can help it," Raven sighs. "And leave the Titans to me. There are things they need to know about, not just with this incident. Since we'll be here a few days, I wouldn't want to be accused of not coming bearing some homecoming gift."

Doctor Fate stares at her for several moments, seeming to easily pick up on what she doesn't say about what the  _other things_  might be.

Jinx, however, simply frowns at her lover in confusion, though gives no voice to it.

"Very well. I'll leave your former partners to you, then. I must deal with this now," he says with a gesture to the amulet in his fist.

"Then have a good day, Doctor," Raven intones with a small nod of her head.

With a matching gesture of his own, Fate vanishes into a burning golden ankh, the acrid scent burning both of their superior senses of smell.

"Ugh… I need a shower. And a bed. And possibly some ' _hell yeah, we just threw down with an immortal and lived to see another day_ ' lovin'," Jinx urges.

Smirking, Raven tightens her hold on the meta as a bubble of soul-self springs up around them.

"Yes, how often will such an occasion present itself? Your libido is a primal force unto itself, love," she chuckles.

In the next moment, they're inside the comfort of their apartment in Jump City, and its numerous wardings and barriers along with it.

The draining of adrenaline from their systems, and their lack of power, makes for a very long and relaxing shower filled with companionable silence and gentle caresses.

It isn't until they're on the almost cloud-soft bed, in each other's arms, that they speak again.

"So what was the whole deal with Etrigan?" Jinx inquires with concern. "It seemed to really get you introspective and in your own little world for a bit."

After a moment of utter silence, Raven pulls Jinx more firmly against herself.

"There have been rumors that I am not Trigon's only sire, in the past. I hoped that said rumors, as well as the possibility of any or all of my hellish siblings being here on Earth, were just rumors. His statement soundly destroyed that false sense of security."

Jinx stares at her lover with wide eyes, her mind working rapidly to sort the new information.

"Well," she begins slowly, "that might not be a bad thing. I mean,  _you're_  his kid, and you're so good you landed the pure awesome that's  _me_. Who's to say you're the only one who isn't a basket case?"

Despite her concern, Raven's lips turn up into a smile, her gaze softening as it focuses on the meta.

"We can hope. Now, then, we need to inform the Titans of our mishap. Much as I would love to have that situational session you mentioned, I think we'd be better off getting some rest. I don't think it would be a good idea to face Richard without enough strength to pummel him should he decide to do something stupid."

Even after a year, the meta can sense the anger her lover's former leader and his betrayal caused her.

While she hadn't given the Titans a second thought since Raven had finally stopped crying from her departure, she knows that the psychic has been keeping tabs on them.

That she thinks Nightwing would react to their arrival at the Tower in such a way sends a small spike of worry through the meta's mind.

Shaking it off, Jinx simply smiles and presses her head into the crook of Raven's neck, letting her eyes slide closed.

"We'll give it a rain check, along with the restaurant. A few hours of sleep can't do us any harm, since I'm about ready to fall asleep any second now, anyway."

"I'm sure Victor will be glad to see you again. Wouldn't want us both looking like zombies," the psychic chuckles.

Raven then wraps her arms around the woman's shoulder and mid-back, letting her own eyes close as the meta molds to her body.

It isn't until several hours have passed that they awaken once more, both women feeling incredibly sore but almost back to their full strengths.

The mingled glow of pink and black surrounding them most likely has something to do with their exceptional recovery, though it vanishes the same instant Jinx notices it.

With a quickly made meal to sustain them, the two head out to the Tower.

Raven sets them on the road outside the Tower, giving those within the structure time to notice their presence.

More importantly, though, it gives her time to feel the Tower out for potential threats, a habit her new line of work had quickly drilled into her.

Jinx notices the setting of Raven's jaw and the narrowing of her eyes, and immediately guesses on who is in the Tower.

Bristling at what's undoubtedly going to be ugly, she wraps her arm around Raven's stomach and pulls her close to her side.

The psychic quickly relaxes, and the two travel the several paces to the door.

Before either woman can knock, the door slides open with a rush of negative energy sweeping against their mental shields.

"Oooh,  _inviting_!" Jinx laughs.

Calmed by her girlfriend's demeanor, Raven walks through the opening and heads straight through Zatanna and Nightwing, not letting their glares so much as slow her pace.

Jinx follows her example, though they both tense at the aggressive, almost dangerous vibes that come from the two Titans.

When Raven reaches the common room, a smile forms in spite of the angry warning bells going off in her mind.

Cyborg jumps up from the couch with a large grin, the two other occupants looking at the new guests with only mild interest.

Until one of them, a man, notices Jinx, at which point his boredom becomes a hardened glare.

"Yo, Rae! It has been  _way_  too long!" Cyborg shouts before pulling her into a crushing hug.

" _Oof_ … Victor, I have need of those bones," Raven winces, though it doesn't deter her own smile.

His grin becoming more sheepish, he lets her back down onto the floor.

"How you been, girl?"

" _Very_  busy," she deadpans.

Her gaze softens, and she offers him a small smile.

"Sorry about Bumble Bee," she offers.

His expression saddens briefly, before his grin's once again in place.

"Wasn't that bad. We're still friends."

"To have made you come back here, I imagine that it wasn't as easily handled as you claim," Raven counters.

While her words are harsh, and brings even harsher glares from Zatanna and Nightwing, her tone is entirely sympathetic to the half-machine.

"Yeah, well, what're ya gonna' do?" he quips.

Raven nods in agreement to something completely lost on Jinx before her gaze moves around the room.

"No Star?"

Cyborg's grin returns to full effect, equally proportionate to how much narrower Nightwing's eyes become behind his mask.

"She'd've come runnin' if she knew you were back in town. Lucky alien, she got to go out an' work with John Stewart. Somethin' about there being an issue from Tamaran that's in the sector, I dunno', but seriously, how cool would that be?"

"Sounds pretty cool," Jinx admits, speaking for the first time. "No Beast Bo… er…  _Changleing,_ either?"

"He's been back with the Doom Patrol for a couple weeks. Apparently they've been looking for Brain ever since they got thawed, and they finally decided they could use his help."

Raven's eyes move to the other occupants of the room, her expression neutral as she meets their gazes.

"And so, naturally, Richard pulled on Keystone City and New Cronus's resources," she quips.

"Raven," Kid Flash greets in a monotone, his glare never leaving Jinx.

"Wally," she responds. "And you must be Wonder Girl… Or it's Troia now, right?"

The woman sitting next to Kid Flash nods, her black hair bobbing around her head.

"Ya' got it in one, hun. We got a call for some help needed around here, my sis's got D.C. covered, and I figured who better to make up for Koriand'r's missing power than an Amazon," she says with a grin. "And I've heard all  _about_  you from those two, Raven, and I gotta' say, you don't exactly look like the Hell walking that everyone would think based on all the reports."

At this, Raven frowns, though Jinx quickly wipes it away by wrapping her arms around her girlfriend's neck.

"You haven't seen-"

Raven's hand immediately rises to cover the meta's mouth, which is in a large grin against her palm.

"No innuendo right now. Not the place, Jinx."

With a shrug, Jinx nods her agreement with an even larger grin.

"Been a while, Jinx. I see you've done wonders for lightenin' her up," Cyborg laughs.

Jinx begins to open her mouth, before she sees something in Raven's apparently neutral expression that stops her.

"I can't respond to that right now, Victor, or I might find myself regretting it?" she asks, her eyes on Raven as she speaks.

With a grin of her own, Raven nods and runs a hand through her blonde locks.

"Not even gonna' ask," Cyborg laughs.

"Smart man. Now, if you wouldn't mind, Walter, stop glaring at my girlfriend as though you're willing her head to explode, and we can get to why we've come here."

Wally's eyes widen at that while both Donna and Victor laugh at his expense.

"That's a good point. Why  _are_ you here?" Zatanna demands.

"Our team, as I'm assuming you know, has retrieved many items back to the museums."

"Oh, so you're here to brag?" the sorceress quips.

"We were doing just that earlier today," Raven continues, "when we, unfortunately fell into what was a rather…  _obvious_  trap, set by Wotan. I would point out, Zatanna, that this means we fought Wotan and are still alive, a feat which would suggest  _your_  powers would not be the ones best set for getting on my bad side so soon after my return."

Zatanna pales at this, as the emotions in the room all turn dark.

"You fought  _Wotan_? Holy crap, are you serious!?" Donna exclaims.

"Well, it was less of a fight and more of a shooting contest, but yeah," Jinx muses.

"At any rate, as I said, it was a trap. He is a supplier for whoever the thieves are, and we were, unfortunately, lured right to him. Considering it was just the two of us, despite the beating we took, I think we did not fare too poorly, but nonetheless, it came down to Doctor Fate and the demon Etrigan stepping in to beat him."

"Which brings us to why we've come to enjoy the  _lovely_  feeling of mental knives coming from bird brain and his mystical spotter," Jinx adds with a grin.

"Play nicer, Jinx," Raven scolds. "There's something that Etrigan said as he was leaving that made it my responsibility to warn the Titans personally."

"Well don't keep us in suspense, Rae, what's up?" Cyborg inquires.

"As it turns out, I am not the only sire of Trigon's blood. Despite me being the portal, there are others, and going by what Etrigan said in passing, it is safe to assume that some may well be on Earth."

"That's what all the build-up's for? So what? You said a year ago that your blood doesn't make you inherently evil, so of course you having siblings isn't a problem, right?"

The tone with which Zatanna questions her causes Raven's hands to turn to fists and her eyes to narrow to slits...  
 *************************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Perturbãtiō- Latin: "Chaos"

Canere- Latin: "Chant"

"Maiṁ tumakō, bē'īmānī sē bhāpa nirvāsita!"- Hindi: "I banish thee, foul miasma"

Well, I hope their reunion is every bit as awkward as one would expect given Raven's departure. You, as the readers, can certainly feel free to tell me how well I did. I hope you're enjoying, and see you next time!


	29. Warning

# XXVIII. Warning

 

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven feels Jinx's anger pulsing through the air, and her own immediately cools.

"You want to insult her a bit less subtly? I almost didn't catch that," the meta hisses with narrowed eyes.

Raven's tension leaves her in a deep breath, and a cool indigo gaze meets Zatanna's once her eyes open once more.

"Calm, Jinx, there are better things to expend our energies on."

Jinx nods and slowly uncoils, pressing more firmly into her girlfriend's side.

"And your grandly insulting statement is not too far off base, unfortunately, though it is none the less insulting. From the little that I know of them from rumors, it may be that I'm not a scion for evil purely out of luck. I shudder to think of living with a people who broke my mind  _lucky_ , mind you, but Azarath is certainly the factor that makes me different from Trigon's other spawn."

"Given our last meeting, I don't think the apple fell as far from the tree as you like to think, Raven," Zatanna sneers.

Cyborg visibly winces at that, and both Donna and Wally follow his lead when he begins taking measured steps back from the four.

A pulse of anger goes through Raven for a bare moment before she smirks at the sorceress.

Bringing her hand up to her chin, she turns her gaze upwards as if deep in thought. With a snap of her fingers, she once again locks gazes with Zatanna, her smirk larger.

"Oh, you're talking about when you tried to attack me and ended up flat on your ass with a mere thought, right? I'd almost forgotten about that. Good memory."

Cyborg snickers while Zatanna's face turns bright scarlet, her face contorting in her own anger.

"Want to try to go again? I bet a year's done wonders for what I can do to your shields," the sorceress hisses.

At this, Jinx begins laughing out loud, her body trembling with the force.

"Oh, you  _don't_  want to go there, bunny. You couldn't even come  _close_ ," she says between laughs.

Zatanna's eyes gain a small glow in response, though this only causes Jinx to chuckle more.

" _Bunny_?" she inquires with a harsh glare.

Jinx opens her mouth to explain the insult, only to be silenced by an upraised eyebrow from her lover.

"Enough," Raven sighs while rubbing her temples. "I did not come to be bored by idle threats, nor to be insulted. Kindly play nice, Jinx. The simple fact of the matter is that I  _am_  different from what all accounts tell me my siblings are like. Azarath, and the pacifism and self-control I was educated with there, are what make me an exception to it all. Well, unless I'm somehow related to Jericho thanks to the souls that reside in him, but regardless, the point remains."

"How convenient," Zatanna mutters.

"Not really. The convenience lies at the Justice League having vouched for my story about the relics a full year ago when your half-cocked assumption nearly had me at the end of my patience. I'm beginning to feel nostalgic on that, Zatanna, so I really should warn you that you need not waste air on every thought bouncing around in your head."

Donna clears her throat, not even blinking as both sorceresses focus their glare on her.

"Sister of an Amazon princess. Cool the glares, girls, you need more than that for me. Anyway, the posturing's nice and all, but kind of missing the point of this all. What're we looking at here? Are we talking magical mosquitos or an army of mini-Trigons?"

"I don't have concrete information on that. Until Etrigan brought it up, I had thought it little beyond rumors. I would say that it's best to assume the latter while hoping for the former."

"Oh, that's nice. If only we had some kind of containment unit built for that kind of a threat," Zatanna sneers.

Jinx's eyes gain a bright pink glow at that, her gaze narrowed to slits.

"You  _don't_  want to remind me what you were planning to do a year ago, bunny."

"It would not matter if I hadn't derailed your loathsome plan or not," Raven responds with a mild glare of her own.

"Yeah? You just told us there could be a ton out there that're like you, but  _not_ playing at being nice-"

"And your cage was meant for me, and only me, in specifics. I remember the spell you would've put on that metal. I do not know whether I'm stronger than my siblings or not, but I  _do_ know that they would have even less plausibility of being beaten or tricked into it than I would have."

"Oh, so they're smarter than you, too? Fan- _tastic_."

Cyborg takes more steps back as the room grows cold, the heat disappearing with every bit that Raven's smirk grows.

"I can't know that until I find them. At any rate, if they  _are_  smarter or stronger than  _me_ , I can only imagine how poorly  _you_ would fare in that fight, Zatanna. So I reiterate that you'd best hope for the former of Troia's suppositions."

Something presses down on Raven's mind, and when she notices the glow in Zatanna's gaze, her barriers slam into place.

The room instantly returns to its former temperature, along with the red flecks dimming in her gaze.

Jinx watches her lover from the corner of her eye, having felt the strangeness in Raven's response as well.

"So I came here to give you the warning, Richard. Send the word out. If a Titan sees red eyes and skin, tell them to send word and to absolutely  _not_ engage. If they're like myself, you can't know if they have my patience or mercy. And if they aren't, then you can be sure you'll start losing members. Either way, there are fights that are best avoided."

Nightwing's eyes narrow behind his mask, a snarl forming on his lips.

" _Don't_ tell me how to run my teams, Raven."

Raven's own eyes narrow to meet his glare, this irritation entirely her own.

"When Trigon came, only our team was able to remain free from the stone prisons entrapping everyone on the planet, and you all escaped only because of my power. I have no way of knowing what powers my siblings have within themselves, but do you think a smart leader would willfully run the risk?"

"When you brought Trigon through, you mean," Nightwing retorts. "We can handle ourselves… But it's definitely not a bad idea to put the word out to be cautious," he admits with a sigh.

"You can't just use your mojo to hunt them down?" Wally asks.

"That's one possibility I'll be looking into. Until I can figure out what kind of threat they pose, just keep on your guards."

"On our guards for what? I mean, if they're like you, they'll just look like a normal person most of the time, right?" Troia asks.

"Possibly. They could be entirely demonic in nature, or they could be half-human, or something else entirely. Unless you knew what to look for with my bloodline, they could just slip by in a human body, or even a good spell that hides them."

"You mean you'd be able to tell them apart if you ran into each other on a street?" Wally asks with a frown.

"We come back to me not knowing specifics. But since I know the changes my nature causes to the world around me, if they're similar, then I would notice the differences between them and others."

"Like the way the room just turned subarctic for a second there," Jinx adds.

"Among other things, yes. It gets more obvious when I'm using more of my power. If I transformed, you might get a better idea of what to look for, but I don't want to end up scaring Zat-"

"Just do it," Troia sighs. "Only Richard and Vic have any idea what to look for right now, so we need whatever we can get."

Shrugging, Raven lets her mind become utterly calm.

Jinx releases her hold on her girlfriend's side and moves to stand at her full height next to her, which coincidentally puts herself directly between Raven and Zatanna.

Power wells up, and her skin becomes bright red in the next instant.

Her head ripples, and four glowing eyes reveal themselves, even as her long hair shifts and becomes the same shade of pearl white as her cloak.

Her nails remain the same length, though the obsidian cast to them darkens and seems to draw in the light around them.

With her senses fully alive, Raven's eyes have no problem seeing what she'd suspected around Zatanna.

Only Jinx notices the slight narrowing to her eyes, the rest of them staring in shock at the woman's changed appearance.

" _ **Victor, your eye should notice that the air around me right now is different**_?" Raven inquires, her voice a hissing rasp.

Blinking, the half-machine focuses on his mechanical eye, a frown of thought forming on his expression.

"Oh, man, you ain't kiddin'! It looks like there's a black hole around you."

Moving her gaze from Zatanna, Raven gives him a nod in agreement.

"That's my soul-self. Normally, it's internalized, but like this, it has nowhere to go but outside."

"Feels like I'm going to get pulled in," Wally adds with a glare.

Jinx ignores them all, keeping her gaze entirely focused on Zatanna, and the harsh glare directed from the witch to her girlfriend.

She may not know what caused Raven's reaction, but she knows better than to not pay attention to it.

"You drop the facade so readily," Zatanna sneers.

" _ **Now pay attention to what you're feeling, right now**_ ," Raven instructs, ignoring the jab.

In the same time it took to change, she once again stands in the command center in grey skin and purple hair.

"Victor?"

"It's still there. But really subdued," he states.

"And I've still got that creepy feeling," Wally interjects.

"Being creeped out by her's the normal reaction," Zatanna sneers.

"What you're feeling right now is my demonic nature. Unless I actively put my energy into hiding it, you'll always feel traces of it. They'll be the same, at least assuming that their physiology is like my own. Keep that in mind, and avoid it if you feel anything like that again."

"Somehow, I think if any of us feel it an' you aren't around, we're already going to be caught in a fight," Troia muses.

"Or if she  _is_  around," Nightwing adds.

They turn to stare at him in surprise, but he merely shrugs and keeps his gaze on the psychic.

"Not what I meant. Probably. Think about it. We just found out about them, but if they were on Trigon's side of things, then they  _have_ to know about Raven. If they're looking for  _her_ -"

"They would've shown up a long time ago if that were the case," Jinx interrupts.

"Point. Especially with all the attention you two get with your work."

"Subtle to a fault," Zatanna agrees, echoing Raven's mockery when she first joined the Titans.

To Raven's surprise, Nightwing's glare moves to the sorceress, his mouth turning downward.

It disappears almost as quickly as it shows up, and his glare shifts back to them.

Something occurs to Raven then, her entire body going stiff as she fights against staring at Zatanna again.

"At any rate, there's much to consider. Keep my warning in mind, and seriously, tell the Titans to watch themselves. If something were to happen, at best they would cause an unnecessary fight against potential allies."

"And at worst?" Wally inquires with a grimace.

Closing her eyes, Raven releases a sigh to work the tension free from her body.

"Think of a scenario where I gave myself fully over to my demonic heritage, took away all humanity from my personality, and wished for nothing but to cause pain and suffering to all of the universe without holding any of my power back. Then, imagine that in multiple individuals," she responds.

Everyone in the room pales at that prospect, even Raven's coloring becoming slightly more white than grey.

"That's bad."

"Bad wouldn't cover it. That would be apocalyptic," Zatanna mutters.

"Not quite, but it would be close enough. I put Trigon down, so I could probably handle a few of them, especially if I had help, but with the information currently available, there's no way of knowing what kind of numbers they have. It could just be two or three, in which case this could all be needless concern. It could also be twenty, given Trigon's…  _proclivities_ …"

"So this is definitely a case of ' _better prepared and not needing it'_ ," Jinx adds.

"I'll send the word out," Nightwing agrees, his color coming back more quickly than the others'.

"Good. We may not like each other, but with how close these thefts are to being solved, it will be important to be able to work together. I feel something ugly coming at the end of this all."

"On top of the mystery siblings.  _Great_. Well, nothing an Amazon loves more than a good challenge," Troia muses.

"I think it's time to head out, then, with all of that out of the way," Jinx proposes.

Nodding gratefully at her lover, Raven turns towards the door.

"Agreed. Nice seeing you again, Victor. If you want to come by, you know how to reach me," she offers.

She doesn't wait for his nod as she heads for the door, Jinx strategically staying at her back as they take their leave.

The information comes together in her mind as she makes her way to the door, a frown forming on her lips when they reach it.

"Zatanna, out of curiosity, have you been feeling… over _…_ um _… rather_ … Have you been feeling  _off_  lately?" she inquires, coming to a sudden stop before the entryway.

Jinx turns her gaze to the sorceress, fully expecting her to spit more venom at her lover.

It is to her surprise, then, that Zatanna nods and looks at the floor.

"Not really. Well, maybe. Every little annoyance's been kinda' turning into a huge deal lately. And I've been kind of… um…  _heated_ , lately. Plus there was feeling you back in town, and working these thefts on top of being a Titan and a Leaguer, plus living with Kori… I figured it was just, y'know… wait… why?"

Jinx watches the sorceress blink in confusion, and then her expression changes to lividly pissed.

"The fuck'd you just do to me?"

"I don't think you quite grasp how my powers work, Zatanna. If I did something to you, you would've noticed," Raven answers with a shrug.

"No, you just did something," she argues. "What the fuck did you do?"

Jinx eyes Raven along with the others, her own curiosity evident to the psychic.

"I assure you, I didn't do anything," she responds. "Well, I asked a question, but I didn't do anything  _to_ you."

Something begins glowing in Zatanna's gaze, the couple both noticing it while the others can't.

"At any rate, perhaps you should look into that. It sounds like you may be taking on too much at the moment," Raven muses.

She turns back to the door and steps towards it.

Only Jinx notices the spark of black at her feet, and the next second, her cloak slips forward and underneath Raven's foot.

When she steps forward, the cloth tightens, and her feet leave her, sending her on a crash course for the door.

" _Ligo_ ," Raven hisses loudly enough for Jinx to barely hear as anything other than a cough, just as her hand moves to the door to steady herself.

Her fall stops, and with a sigh, Raven slips her feet back down beneath herself mid-air.

"Flight really is more convenient. I think I need to get this shortened," she muses to Jinx.

Only Jinx's eyes, accustomed to seeing her lover's magic, can see the small black spark that hits the door as Raven's hand pulls back.

Feigning embarrassment, Raven leaves without another word, the meta following just as silently behind her...  
 **********************************  
**

Once in the confines of their home, Jinx whirls on Raven.

"So…  _did_ you do anything to the bunny?"

Falling onto the couch, the psychic gives her lover a smirk.

"As I said, I did nothing more than ask her a question."

Jinx frowns in thought, going over her exact phrasing.

When she gets it, her eyes widen in surprise.

" _No way! "_ Over… um… _"…_ ** _verum_** _!?_ " she ponders in shock.

"You didn't think maybe she'd notice your incredible word salad there and would think something was up?"

Grinning, Raven gives the meta a shrug in response.

"If she does, there's not exactly anything to do about it. I didn't spell her, or hex her, or anything severe enough to warrant any kind of forceful response, assuming she could muster one up."

Laughing, Jinx moves to sit beside her.

"The Dark Side's treating you well," she quips.

"At any rate, it worked for its purpose."

The darkening of Raven's gaze causes her lover to tense, a frown on her face.

"And what  _was_ the purpose?"

"You know how my senses get when I'm calling on my demonic nature-"

"No kiddin'," Jinx mutters with a bright blush.

Smirking, Raven pulls her against her side, increasing the color of the blush to nearly neon levels.

"Mind out of the gutter, love. I saw everyone's auras when I changed."

"And found out that bunny's a bitch? This was news?"

"I don't know that she is. There were signs of tampering with her, and Richard's, auras."

"Whoa, you mean…  _possession_?" the meta gasps.

"It would explain Zatanna's change in character and demeanor, from everything I'd heard before she joined up with Richard a year ago… If that's the case, then it's at least partially my fault. I noticed oddities back then, and didn't put as much attention into it as I should have."

"It'd explain the weird glowing eyes bit, too… Oh, Raven, that could be  _bad_."

"And yet, it's not just Zatanna. It's Richard, too. Which suggests a spell of some kind, rather than a spirit's work."

Jinx frowns in thought, working the information over from every angle she could think of.

"What would be the point? A ghost, or demon, or something, I could see. But what would be the point of a spell like that? From what I can figure, all it does is make her irritable and horny."

"And angry. Irrationally so, whenever in my presence," Raven adds. "It's less the intent behind it, and more the mechanics of it that concern me."

"Well, it's not like it'd be too hard to hex her or anythin'."

"I wouldn't go that far, Jinx. She is less weak than she is insecure about her powers. Sure, she couldn't hurt either of us in a fight, especially after the last year, but she nonetheless has a lot of skill, else the League wouldn't accept her readily. To do something to her psyche that would be so subtle as to seem natural… that would take a great deal of both power and finessed control."

Jinx pales as a disturbing thought occurs to her, the expression on her lover's face telling her it's not her conclusion alone.

"You don't think… I mean, could  _you_ do something like that? Hell, could  _Trigon_?"

"He had strong psychic abilities. If he were one for subtlety, who's to know  _what_ capabilities he had that he saw no point in ever using? I brought honesty from someone who may be potentially possessed with a word. Who knows  _what_ they'd be able to do?"

Jinx hums in thought, her eyes closing as she concentrates on the ideas rolling around.

"I just don't see it. I mean, there would be a reason if they were coming after you but they didn't do anything to you directly. And what would be the point of using  _Zatanna_? Especially after you left the Titans and had no contact with her?"

Whatever thought that occurs to Raven causes her to stiffen around Jinx, causing the meta to tense as well.

"What?"

"Had I not met you… Think about what was going on, Jinx. They were building a way to lobotomize me. Further, Zatanna was compromising Dick's judgment further than most other things have. If I hadn't had your friendship and love, I would have had virtually nothing but meditation to keep me human."

Jinx catches on then, her mouth opening in a gasp.

"And if you'd been kicked out of the Titans-"

"I would have had no support in this world. Going to Koriand'r or Victor would compromise them as Titans. I would have lost my tethers to my humanity. It would not be impossible, if they have the kind of power to do that to Zatanna, for them to take me if I was in the state that I undoubtedly would have been put in. If I resisted yet, they would have had the cage as a backup strategy."

"Uh… not that I'm necessarily worried or anything, but, um, Rae, what're the chances they  _did_ build that cage again? I mean, you threatened them pretty good from what you told me, but-"

"I've kept watch. They don't have the cage. And I've had Cyborg watching for them using other means to have it built. It's not out of the possibilities that my siblings have done it themselves, though…"

"I think we need to look into your family, Raven," Jinx speculates worriedly.

"Yes, we do. Perhaps, as I told them, there's little to worry about and they may just be toying with the two out of amusement. Getting kicks from watching the drama they caused and the lasting effects between Kori and the rest. Or the rest of the Titans and Richard, for that matter, though I somehow doubt they had more than a small hand in his contingencies, or the subsequent airing of that secret by me."

"Yeah, I meant to ask about that. It seemed like Cy only came back recently, and unwillingly."

"He left to Titans East as soon as I was gone. Garfield was angry about it all, as well, but from what I gathered, he decided to stay and keep an eye on Richard. Between the two of them, word got around the Titans about the plans, and many struck out on their own. At any rate, he was dating Bumble Bee while there."

"They seem like they'd get along," Jinx muses, memories of the H.I.V.E. days flashing through her mind.

"Indeed. But they're also both strong-willed-"

"Stubborn?" the meta supplies with a grin.

"-stubborn that it recently led to problems with the team. They decided it was best to go their own ways for their team's sake, and Cy ended up coming back here shortly after. I've no idea why he decided to do so, but I'd much rather work with them while he's present than not."

"Well, whatever reason, I ain't gonna' complain that he's here, either. If both of them are possessed by your family, it can't hurt to have somebody who's pretty much immune to that shit on their team."

"He  _does_  have a resistance, if the old Blood was any indication."

"And yet you don't seem optimistic, somehow. C'mon, Tinman can definitely handle himself," the meta laughs.

"You really  _must_ work on your nicknaming habits," Raven scolds. "At any rate, while he can certainly stand up well against that kind of magic, the concern I have is that he resists external influences, such as what happened when he was being taken over by Blood."

"Well, it's not like they're able to mess with them  _internally_ … right?"

"My soul-self is essentially my demonic nature itself, in energy form. I could possibly send it elsewhere without it doing anything harmful to myself… Here's a worrisome thought. Rather than them being possessed, what if my siblings, assuming that it is them, were to do something like exert their soul-selves into those two, instead? In theory, it's possible that they could, instead of possessing them, pull the dark aspects of their souls from suppression by stimulating them with their demonic natures."

"In which case, they would be themselves, and would just assume anything odd was natural," Jinx finishes. "Rae, the more we talk, the more I hope that Etrigan was screwing with us, 'cause frankly, this is startin' to scare the shit out of me."

Normally, the statement would be a lighthearted one, coming from the meta.

The slight tremor to her form in Raven's arms, however, alerts her to just how honest the concern is.

Frowning, Raven pulls her closer, tightening her arms around the hex caster's stomach possessively.

"Do not be afraid needlessly, Nicole. I bested my father, and I would gladly repeat the process on any who would dare to threaten you."

Jinx's tremors subside, and she turns to gaze into her lover's amethyst eyes.

"You're really good at that, you know," she muses with a soft smile.

Grinning, Raven cups her chin briefly before pulling her into a sweet kiss.

When they separate once more, both women are flushed and breathing more difficultly.

"That, too," the meta laughs, her eyes glazed over somewhat.

"And for some reason, I can never resist when the opportunity arises, so perhaps it isn't only me," Raven quips.

"So, what was with the whole tripping thing? Very subtle, by the way, I don't think I would've even guessed you did that on purpose if I wasn't the pure awesome that I am… well, that, and that I was almost on top of you."

"An old binding spell. Only demons and those influenced by them will notice anything. That you noticed it simply means we're closer than I had originally assumed… Anyway, it will, at least in theory, wipe any negative influence and energy inside the Tower from existence."

"Whoa… So… what? You exorcised them?"

"That would take far less subtlety and far more brute force. At least in theory, when we left, the spell should have begun already draining away the corrupting force that influences both Nightwing and Zatanna."

"And it was all done in a cough. Damn, woman, you're incredible," Jinx laughs.

Raven's grin changes, and she leans forward, putting her lips against the meta's ear.

"You know, we haven't yet gotten to relieve the stress of Wotan's attack, which I recall you not thinking twice to step in front of for my sake. I think that it's only fair if I show you just how  _incredible_  I can be," she whispers.

Jinx can only moan in agreement as they fall into a black vortex through the couch, their clothes not following their journey to the bed…  
 ********************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Ligo: Latin- "Bind"

Verum: Latin- "Truth"

For reference, this is the actual Titans East, not Deathstroke's that I made reference to earlier in the story.

Also, when I originally wrote this over on ff net, I said I'd be writing the missing sex scenes at some point. This site is where I'll be putting them, but first, I want to get the whole story as it originally was posted here.

I missed writing verbal sparring matches, but I certainly got to enjoy this one. I hope you're all enjoying so far, as well. And perhaps Raven's gotten a bit devious over the last year? Well, I, for one, don't think she's even started showing all that she's picked up in that time yet. Look forward to badass things to come, people. See you all next time!


	30. Future

# XXVIX. Future

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven awakens slowly, a gentle purring noise bringing her consciousness away from the comfortable darkness.

A familiar, incredibly comfortable warmth wraps around her body, making a strong argument to just go back to sleep and enjoy it a little longer.

As she begins to lose the mental tug of war and lower back into sleep's embrace, something wet presses against her neck.

She hums in appreciation of the pleasant burn that starts taking form on her skin, though she still fights to fall back asleep.

A soft giggle reaches her ears, and Jinx starts sweeping her finger in slow circles around the drowsy psychic's abdomen.

"If you aren't awake soon, Rae, I'm in no way responsible for what I have to do to get you up," the meta whispers with another giggle.

Raven remains silent, though her lip curls slightly in response.

Seeing it, Jinx sends her tongue up to the earlobe and begins lightly lapping at the skin.

"C'mon. Aren't you going to be embarrassed waking up after  _me_?" she quips.

When Raven makes no audible response, Jinx's lips split in her Cheshire grin and she leans her head closer until her lips rest on the spot just behind the psychic's ear.

"I warned you."

She latches onto the skin and begins sucking, and Raven's eyes immediately snap open.

Grinning into her kiss, Jinx continues sucking on the sensitive flesh until Raven's breaths are changed to quivering gasps.

"I-I'm up," Raven groans.

Smirking, Jinx pulls back to meet her violet eyes.

"You're insatiable, Jinx."

"You know it! But there's actually a reason I'm making you get up," Jinx explains.

"And that is…?"

With a vague gesture to the other side of their bedroom, Jinx lets her head rest on Raven's collar.

"Got a call from Giz. He wanted to let us know that he's got a lead, but he's working on it himself until he knows if he'll be sending us on a wild goose chase. Also got a call from Steel. He said that we need to take a day after he heard about Wotan. Turns out he does care a little if we run ourselves ragged," she quips with a grin.

"It sounds like we have the day off, then. So why did  _you_ of all people not go back to sleep, then?"

"Because I tried that when I got off with Gizmo, and just when I was starting to get back to sleep was when Steel called. Who knows if they'll call back if I try getting back to sleep?"

"Your logic is infallible," Raven deadpans.

"Yep! And if I'm up, then I'm not going to be the only one. 'Sides, when was the last time we had an actual day off?"

Raven's eyes rise as she does the math, her mind letting her know she's awake for the rest of the day now.

"The last time we were in Gotham."

"Which was…?" Jinx prompts with a smirk.

"Uh… three… no,  _four_  months ago," Raven sighs.

"Exactly. So, why don't you get your cute ass into the shower, and I can take you up on that Angelique offer for breakfast?" Jinx offers.

Raven runs her hand through her hair as a smile forms.

"What? No offer to join me?" she quips.

"Yeah,  _I'm_ the only insatiable one here," Jinx laughs. "But nuh-uh. I want to actually go out and enjoy a real date for a change, and I'm not lettin' us get distracted til' we get back tonight."

Raven winces at that, remembering the last few dates they had managed to have during their travels.

It had usually ended up a quick dinner in before rushing off on Steel's orders, or a new lead, or other inane interruptions.

"Then I'd better get moving," she sighs.

She plants a quick kiss on her girlfriend in passing, and quickly moves through her morning routine.

The entire time, Raven has a feeling creeping along her spine.

With the stray thoughts to Wotan, her siblings, and her growing suspicions, the sensation becomes more than a word like "foreboding" would be fit to describe.

It had been a long time since her last  _premonition_ , as she'd been forced to acknowledge she had gained with her father's defeat, and right now she knows that is what she's going through.

While there aren't images to go with the sensation, Raven knows that something very ugly is on the way.

With a sigh, her clothes materialize around her form and she sends Jinx to do her own routines.

As the water starts running, Raven decides that, if her premonition is as serious as she thinks, she will be determined to make their date the best experience in Jinx's life.

It's with that thought that the women leave their apartment and head out to Jump City.

Raven's growing plans are sidetracked when something catches Jinx's eye.

Following her gaze, Raven finds herself staring at a large marquee, surrounded by unlit light bulbs.

On it is a poster almost painful to look at, due to the incredible amount of yellow on it.

Through the garish colors, Raven gets the gist of the film, and her lip quirks in a smile.

"A spy movie, Jinx?  _Really_?"

Jinx turns a brilliant smile towards her, though a slight blush colors her.

"Aw, c'mon, Rae, you don't ever wish that the crap Steel sends us on would be that simple?" she quips. "Nothing wrong with the occasional spy flick for some amusement."

The way Jinx is practically bouncing, combined with her slit eyes and large, toothy grin, suddenly makes Raven picture an excited animal.

Holding back a laugh, she tightens her hold on Jinx's abdomen and practically presses her lips to the meta's ear.

"If you say so. I may just be jaded, but I wouldn't mind indulging if you want to see it."

Jinx shivers at the breath on her ear, and her eyes dilate at the sensation.

"We won't be paying much attention to the movie, will we?" she asks in a slightly breathy voice.

Raven raises an eyebrow at that, her smile turning to a lopsided smirk.

"I do believe, dear Jinx, that you're mistaking me for you. I can hold off on my urges until we're in the confines of our home, thank you very much."

Jinx's eyes narrow at this, and she turns to be even closer to the psychic.

The dangerous air to her smile sends a pleasant shiver up Raven's spine.

"Is that a challenge?"

"No. Neither of us would enjoy such a challenge," Raven quips. "Now, I believe you wanted to see a cheesy spy movie?"

Grinning, Jinx pulls Raven by her elbow to the ticket counter, and the two soon find themselves alone in the cool theater.

They take their seats just as the movie begins playing, and the women quickly fall into the cheesy 60's thriller.

While Jinx pays rapt attention to the tale of intrigue taking place before her, Raven's mind quickly wanders.

She wonders, briefly, if some deity had decided to give the two women this day of rest.

Following the trail of thought, she finds herself very worried over what such an event would mean for their very near future.

Dismissing the thought with a shake of her head, she lets her mind roam in Richard's and Zatanna's direction.

She'd discovered many new talents since her acceptance of her entire being, and her experiment with Zatanna proved to be more successful than she had ever thought it would be.

If her siblings were, in fact, embracing the darkness she'd spent her entire life fighting, that meant nothing good on how far advanced they would possibly be compared to her.

As Wotan had proven, she had fallen woefully out of practice pulling on her powers in the months of C-list villains and misfortunate thugs who happened to find themselves involved in the thefts.

She finds herself wondering if, were a number of siblings to appear in the confines of the shadowy theater, she would be capable of fighting them off.

The thought sends a chill through her entire being, and she's unaware of the red glow her eyes begin to give off into the darkness.

She is, however, aware of how the shadows sink away in her sight.

While not on par with nocturnal vision, with the influx of her soul-self into her body, she finds herself looking out at the entire theater as though the lights had not been turned off.

While the screen becomes glaring and painful to her eyes, the rest of the theater resolves, and she unconsciously holds her breath as she casts her gaze around.

After a full thirty seconds of both her eyes and mystical senses probing the theater, she finds no movement save for Jinx's occasional twitching.

Letting her breath out, she calms and stifles a derisive snort over such a ridiculous bout of paranoia.

That thought itself, though, gives her pause.

If she is correct that her siblings had somehow prodded at Richard's natural paranoid tendencies, then it is possible that she, as a planner herself, would possibly fall victim to the same thing.

With that cheerful thought forming, she snaps her mental barriers to their full power and expands her soul-self in a thick layer through her body.

The black energy begins centered in her mind and heart, and slowly expands throughout her entire body.

Even in the darkness of the theater, Jinx's attention is brought from the screen as Raven's entire body momentarily spills a black glow from its pores.

The energy dissipates, and Raven breaths a sigh of relief.

If there had been any influence on her, from her siblings or otherwise, it is surely gone now.

Raven spares a thought to chastising herself for not doing the purge sooner, but then she focuses a smile on Jinx.

"What?" she asks upon seeing the meta's wide-eyed stare.

"Is sweating soul-self a new trick?" Jinx inquires.

Everything about her demeanor is curious, and Raven's smile grows.

Her lover had long ago gotten over any fears of Raven's powers, so she was always fascinated whenever the psychic demonstrated a new ability that she had no prior knowledge of.

"A precaution, to put my mind at ease," Raven offers.

"Um… what kind of precaution?" Jinx asks with slight worry.

"I was getting a bit paranoid. Wanted to make sure that it was my own tendency to be overly worried, and not something akin to what Richard went through."

The movie all but forgotten now, Jinx turns fully towards her in her seat.

"'Kay, if you think you need a precaution, it's reason to worry. Did you feel something? Was there-?"

Raven places her index finger against soft lips, cutting Jinx off.

"Calm. I won't have my paranoid tendencies making this day anything less than enjoyable for you. All I did was an energy purge to wash away any potential influences. Nothing to be worried over, Jinx, though I won't lie and say it would be a poor idea for you to do so as well."

Jinx's eyes immediately snap closed, and her entire body glows neon pink in the darkness.

The glow fades quickly, and she heaves a sigh of relief when her eyes open once more.

"Nothin'."

"Very good. Then let us return to enjoying… oh, I'm sorry," Raven sighs at seeing the credits scrolling up the screen.

Evidently her worry had taken her further out of awareness than she had thought possible.

"No problem. I enjoyed it," Jinx offers with her Cheshire grin.

Scratching at the back of her neck, Raven leans forward and plants a kiss on the meta's cheek.

"As long as you enjoyed yourself," she offers.

Grinning, Jinx pulls her upright by her hand.

A much deeper kiss later, the two walk back into the painfully bright day.

Jinx sends worried glances at Raven every so often as they walk, caused by the obvious tension in the demonling's body.

Her lover's concern, as well as her proximity, grounds Raven, as the meta's presence always does.

Slowly, the tension leaks from her body under Jinx's influence, causing the tension to fade from the meta as well.

They make their way in comfortable silence away from the theater, deciding to walk so as to extend their date as long as possible.

While most of the side shops serve as nothing but scenery, one shop in particular catches Jinx's eye.

She feels her face light up as her eyes refuse to leave the shop window, and Raven once again finds herself wondering what has her girlfriend so engrossed.

For a brief moment, she wonders on why Jinx, who had no inhibitions that Raven had yet to find, would get so embarrassed over a lingerie store.

Then her eyes move to the shop next to it, and her heart skips a beat.

The window shows a mannequin dressed in a shining, flowing white gown, and all the roses decorating the storefront make her glad she has no allergies thanks to her physiology.

Feeling Raven's stare shifting from the window to her, Jinx's face colors even more brightly.

"Could you imagine? I don't get people some times, for how much money those things run," Jinx laughs.

"A hopeless romantic who doesn't entertain thoughts of a wedding? That's an interesting premise," Raven offers with a smirk.

Jinx glares at her, causing Raven's smirk to grow even larger.

"And an Azarathian who would entertain the thoughts would be even stranger," she retorts.

"Those in Azarath were human," Raven argues. "The customs followed with them, at least where that's concerned. Of course, I'd never toyed around with the idea, but take the fact that I hadn't seriously contemplated romance at all until we started dating for what it's worth."

Jinx's brow shoots up at that, her face feeling like it's actually aflame.

" _Had_ never? Now  _that_ is a strange idea right there, Rae," she unsteadily laughs off.

Raven simply smiles, feeling her blood pressure rapidly rising.

"Well, you clearly were thinking on it in some way just now, and so the concept just occurred," the psychic defends herself. "It never occurred to me that you would be the kind of person who would want something like a wedding."

"I don't! Well, not a wedding, anyway, they're wastes of money," she mutters.

Raven's heart skips another beat, and she steps up close enough to be practically on top of Jinx.

Their eyes meet, and the embarrassment fades away in an instant.

"We can definitely discuss this in more detail, once the case is over with and the Earth is assured to be whole and safe. Assuming I'm reading between the lines correctly, here."

Jinx feels her heart squeeze, and she lets a smirk take hold to try to lighten the mood.

"I think you might be. At any rate, I ain't exactly the churches and dresses kind of girl. I think the idea of growing old with you definitely has some appeal, though. Not least of which because it'd mean we survive all this crap coming our way, but still."

Jinx shivers as Raven's hand slips into her brunette mane, her fingers lightly caressing her scalp.

"I'm not even sure if I could technically enter a church, so I have to agree with you there," Raven quips. "There are other such ceremonies, though. As I said, I wouldn't mind discussing this when this ordeal is finally finished, if you wouldn't as well."

As Raven begins leaning in to plant another kiss on her lover, a large man seems to appear from nowhere and crashes into the women in his charge.

Raven almost tumbles over atop Jinx from the sudden impact, and she feels a quick stab of pain in her elbow.

She steadies herself, and Jinx turns to yell at the stranger only to find him disappeared around the corner.

"The hell!?" Jinx grouses.

The pain disappears from Raven's elbow, and she spares a glare at the man's direction before turning back to Jinx.

"Could be worse. Could've been that guy who almost ran us over in Gotham," she offers with a smirk.

Jinx giggles, her disgruntled glare vanishing at the memory.

"Oh, yeah, he had to be confused as hell coming out of your portal," she laughs.

Shrugging the experience off, the two walk away from the bridal store and back towards the Angelique once again.

The embarrassment of their previous conversation weighs heavily on the two for most of their lunch.

A strange sensation worms its way into Raven's stomach, and she feels a familiar warmth throughout her entire body.

If her mind wasn't wandering over what marriage would do for the women considering the nature of their relationship already, she may have wondered on how some normal person had managed to injure her arm despite her body's considerable resistance to physical trauma…  
 **********************

" _ **Stop**_!"

Jinx startles awake with the sound of a crash and scream somewhere off to her side.

She'd gone to sleep with Raven's arms wrapped warmly around her stomach, but now she finds the psychic on the floor.

The grogginess vanishes in an instant at the sight of the wildly thrashing demonling.

Her skin is a shade of red nearly dark enough to be black, and she sports four eyes, all of which are closed in apparent agony.

As Jinx practically leaps from their bed to Raven's side, all four eyes open to reveal stark, black orbs.

"Rae, wake up!" she shouts as her heart jackhammers in her chest.

Despite the utter lack of pupils, Jinx can feel Raven's gaze on her.

As the eyes lock on her, the black fades from them and tears begin rolling down her cheeks.

Even as the red bleeds out of her skin, and her eyes merge back into two, her gaze doesn't leave Jinx.

The horror in her indigo gaze is more than unsettling to Jinx.

Raven suddenly lunges forward and wraps herself tightly around Jinx, her lips pressing into Jinx's forehead and lips.

Jinx runs soothing circles in the tense psychic's back and neck with her hands, cooing sounds leaving her.

With the thought of what it would take to cause the reaction in Raven, Jinx finds herself fighting off panic even as she attempts to calm her lover down.

"Whatever it was, it was just a dream, Raven," she offers. "I'm right here."

Raven's eyes lock with hers again, and the horror very slowly begins leeching away.

Regardless, she shakes her head.

"Not a dream. Nothing like a dream. It wasn't a premonition, either. It was… too concrete… too  _real_ ," Raven states between gasping breaths.

With the reality of Jinx's presence settling over her, Raven's mind gradually returns to rationality.

It is only when she can breath evenly again that she notices a dull throbbing sensation on her left arm.

Her eyes reluctantly leave Jinx's to travel down to the limb.

Anger pulses headily through her at what she sees, burning the remnants of her fear to cinders.

Wrapped in a thick band around her arm, from her bicep to her wrist, is a group of slightly glimmering black tattoos.

Each one is a symbol, and as she lets her eyes take in the language, she finds something that looks almost exactly like the Mark of Skaath, centered directly on her elbow…  
 **********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

For reference on the movie poster, just look up To Trap a Spy. As a designer, it's painful for me to look at.

Cue dramatic music. I tried not to make the rest of the scene outside of this last bit feel too much like filler, though I'm not sure how well I succeeded. I can't quite tell if the pacing got awkward here or not, so I'll look forward to other people's inputs to let me know how it works. Be prepared for a lot of action soon. Hope you're all enjoying, and see you next time!


	31. Hunt

# XXX. Hunt

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx stares in worry as Raven's tears dry up, and an ominous black glow begins to shine through her eyes.

The psychic's teeth clench, and she forces herself to take slow, measured breaths as her vision begins sharpening without her willing it to.

Anger had always been the strongest catalyst for her uglier nature, and accepting that part of herself hadn't changed much in that regard in the last year.

Only when she forces her eyes away from the markings on her arm and into Jinx's concerned pink orbs does she start to feel more human.

As her vision dulls, she wraps her unmarked arm tighter around the meta's waist and pulls her close.

She dares not put the cursed markings anywhere near her beloved if she can help it, especially with her own demonic side so close to the surface and undoubtedly fueling them.

"Rae, talk to me. You've got that  _I'm gonna' rain hellfire on someone's ass_  look."

"I- I do not have a  _look_ for that," Raven argues, even as she appreciates her lover's concern.

Despite the situation, Jinx giggles at that.

"Yeah, you do, hon. And it takes a special class of bastard to bring it out. So just talk to me. You'll feel better," she promises with her Cheshire smile.

Raven stares at her for a moment before releasing a heavy sigh.

"Perhaps it would bee better to show you?"

Despite her trepidation, Jinx grabs a tight hold on her lover's hand and nuzzles into her neck.

"Do it."

Raven's eyes glow black, and their minds connect…  
 ************************************

Raven stands next to Jinx in a small, enclosed meadow.

Both women occupy the Dream-Raven's mind, seeing what she sees and giving Jinx a headache.

Seeing herself as Raven sees her is awe-inspiring, to say the least.

Both Dream-Raven and -Jinx are garbed in large, flowing gowns of dark purple.

Dream-Raven smiles and raises their joined hands to her gaze, taking in both of their ring fingers.

On each one sits a small band of gold. The circlets end in a pair of hands, holding a small heart-shaped diamond that points up their arms.

The rings are warm to the touch, adding to the pleasant sensation of their entwined hands.

Four cords of silk are draped over their joined hands, shining in a small corona of colors against their skin.

Jinx doesn't quite understand the meaning to the ribbons, but she can tell from Dream-Raven's emotions rolling through both of the women that they have some significance.

"Nicole and Rachel, as your hands are bound together now, so your lives and spirits are joined in a union of love and trust," a gruff, elderly and masculine states.

Dream-Raven's eyes leave their hands and meet Jinx's counterpart, both of them smiling brilliantly at each other.

Jinx understands what Raven's dream is then, and she finds herself wishing that her astral self in this strange dream realm had its own eyes to see what  _her_ Raven thinks of it.

The soft caress on her psyche tells her that Raven has more autonomy in the dream than she herself does, and that she isn't unpleased with  _this_ part of her dream, at least.

The unseen man reads a few more lines to the women, and soon Dream-Raven and -Jinx are kissing.

The feeling of warmth that floods Dream-Raven makes Jinx's head spin.

Suddenly the warmth vanishes, leaving Jinx's psyche shivering just the same as if she'd been thrown into a meat locker in her real body.

Dream-Raven's gaze leaves -Jinx's, and turns to face the invaders on their nuptial scene.

Jinx feels Raven tighten her psychic hold around her psyche, and understands the need for extra protection when suddenly, she finds herself seeing what Dream-Raven sees through four demonic eyes.

Seeing all the detail sends a spark of pain through the meta, and she finds herself thanking every deity in existence that she's not a normal human, who would've had her psyche burnt to ashes under the sensational assault.

The pain subsides after a few seconds, and when Jinx opens her psychic eyes again, she finds herself, and Dream-Raven, staring at a ring of people.

The Justice League and Brotherhood of Evil stand side by side in the field, seeming far more focused on Dream-Raven than each other.

The hatred in many of their stares sends a primal instinct into action inside of Dream-Raven.

The world turns black for an instant, and when it resolves again, Dream-Raven and -Jinx are wrapped in a bubble of soul-self.

A series of chuckles sounds at the pair's other side, and Dream-Raven's head turns to take in the others.

Six figures, wrapped in shadow and almost missing from Dream-Raven's vision entirely, stand on the other side of the meadow.

While their bodies are nearly invisible, the red, fiery Mark of Skaath on each and every one of their foreheads is crystal clear.

Dream-Raven pulls Jinx into her arms as the field catches on fire.

The ground springs flames in large, spewing columns of smoke and heat, and Dream-Raven doesn't need to gain altitude to know what is happening.

Jinx, too, knows that the fires springing to life are making another Mark of Skaath around Dream-Raven's protective bubble.

A horrid scent, made of burning grass, wood, and sulfur, rises to Dream-Raven's nose, and Jinx finds herself glad that she can't vomit in astral form.

Pain flares through Dream-Raven, and Jinx's lover extends a massive wall of soul-self around both of their astral forms.

Laughter sounds as Dream-Raven writhes on the ground, and even Raven's shield cannot protect them from the fear that comes with knowing the pain on her forehead comes from her own Mark appearing against her will.

Dream-Raven tightens her hold around -Jinx, and takes to the sky.

Feeling gravity literally stop working around them, experiencing what her lover does when she flies, makes Jinx momentarily wonder if there is some way that she could talk Raven into that being her next lesson.

When Dream-Raven stares down at the forces gathered on the meadow, though, the thought vanishes.

" _ **I have fought stronger than you. You won't win, no matter how hard you try,**_ " Dream-Raven boasts.

The silhouettes of what have to be Raven's siblings, all brothers by the sound, just continue laughing at Dream-Raven's expense.

Seeing several of the people below react, Jinx understands that the threat, to them, probably sounds like it's directed at them.

Dream-Raven's attention moves away from her siblings and instead to Zatanna, who stands in front of the groups.

Yet another Mark glows black, though it's nearly invisible even to Dream-Raven's eyes, on the sorceress's throat.

"Hear that!? I told you all, and I was right. She's as much a demon as the rest of them!"

Doctor Fate appears, his eyes glowing ominously as he stares at Dream-Raven.

"Why would you betray your friends? Your world? Even your betrothed?" he demands in a booming voice.

Dream-Raven's fear is more than matched by Jinx's own.

Jinx realizes in that moment that she'd never truly heard the sorcerer angry, and if Raven's dream, whether imagined or brought from personal experience at some point, is even close to the truth, she never wants to.

Fate's voice echoes, seeming to charge the air around them with thousands of voices both whispering and screaming in chorus.

More laughter sounds on the other side of the meadow, and a thought occurs to Dream-Raven that causes Jinx to press her psyche more firmly into her lover's protective embrace.

Fate's last comment causes both Dream-Raven and Jinx to tremble.

Their vision moves slowly downward, and Jinx once again finds herself glad she has no stomach to empty in her astral form.

Dream-Jinx rests in -Raven's arms, staring blankly back at her.

Her eyes are frozen in horror, and the pink glow, the mark of both her powers and, if Raven's explanation had been correct, her very soul, is incredibly dim in her eyes.

Her forehead shares yet one more Mark, though instead of the fire of the demons' symbols, hers is black and charred, as if it had been branded into her skull and healed over.

At Dream-Raven's apparent horror, the laughter increases in volume.

" _ **One sacrifice willingly made by the prodigal daughter, and the gates open so easily,**_ " one of her siblings mocks.

Dream-Raven's eyes move away from -Jinx, and she finds herself staring into the massive symbol on the ground.

More worryingly, she finds herself staring at the swirling pool of black light that rests in the center.

A powerful rage sets off in Dream-Raven, equally matching the sorrow.

Once again, Jinx finds herself staring through four eyes, and she hopes that the dream ends soon before her eyes stop working correctly.

As Dream-Raven begins flying towards her siblings, a hand wrapped in a massive claw of soul-self while the other clings to Jinx, a movement at her side appears.

Before she can react, an orange fist slams into Dream-Raven's face, sending her crashing to the ground.

Jinx winces as the pain rushes against Raven's shield, the ground cracking in a small tidal wave around the crumpled body.

As orbs of crackling, green energy rain down on the pair, Dream-Raven wraps herself protectively over -Jinx's husk.

Mournful tears leave her as the agony goes all but ignored, her gaze never leaving the apparently brain-dead meta.

The starbolts continue ripping Dream-Raven's body apart around Jinx's counterpart.

As pain rolls in waves through her, the laughter yet again grows in volume, until the rest of the world seems to be completely drowned out.

Even the sounds of the ground exploding around her are overtaken by the siblings' laughter.

Suddenly, a particularly large bolt of energy lances through Dream-Raven's chest, exploding on -Jinx's body.

Her eyes alight once more with her pink energy, and for a moment, Dream-Raven sobs in relief at the return of her lover's life from the energy.

Then the hole opens on the meta's chest, and her eyes slide closed as blood pours in and seems to fill the entire crater around their bodies.

As her lover dies, something in Dream-Raven's mind snaps.

The change is almost enough to break the real Raven's barrier.

" _Almost… done_ ," the demonling's voice whispers, her voice strained despite the soothing effect it has on Jinx.

The world around them flashes red, and Jinx watches in horror as everything shifts.

Just like in their fight with Wotan, the dimension shimmers and seems to melt around Dream-Raven's body.

Obsidian speckles the ground around them, and columns of lava explode up from the ground.

As they burn the very air from their heat, the sky is turned black.

The people in the field back away from the monster before them, and ash begins raining down from the scarlet clouds.

Before they make another step back, their bodies freeze and glow a dark, horrifying black.

When the glow vanishes, everyone on the meadow is stone.

Even the siblings, still unseen, are entombed in rock.

The world dissolves around Dream-Raven, and when it becomes clear again, the statues are all pressed together into a massive pile.

The top of the pile, to Jinx's and Raven's horror both, looks distinctly like a throne.

Dream-Raven's body trembles in horror as she looks around herself.

Suddenly, the warmth in her arms turns icy, and she reluctantly lets her eyes fall.

She finds Dream-Jinx's body to be stone, and as she watches, the rock cracks and turns to dust…  
 ************************************

Jinx comes awake with a gasp, her body drenched in sweat and her limbs shaking.

She finds Raven still right beside her, the psychic's eyes leaking waves of tears to more than match her own.

Jinx simply stares at Raven with wide eyes.

The normally energetic and talkative metahuman is completely speechless from the horrors her lover had just gone through, in her mind where she couldn't do a thing to help her.

Unable to find any adequate words, Jinx simply wraps herself around Raven's torso and holds her.

The demonling trembles in the embrace, the horrors just as terrible as the first time.

"Okay," Jinx finally sighs. "So, you said this wasn't just a dream, and it sure as hell won't be a premonition as long as I can do anything about it."

"It could happen, you know… If I ever lost you like that, I wouldn't just kill those who had destroyed you, I would destroy everything… If  _I_ caused you to… to-"

"It's never going to happen," Jinx declares with a confidence so genuine that it surprises both women. "I won't  _ever_  let it happen."

Raven smiles against her collar, her tears drying up quickly while in Jinx's arms.

Once again, the woman had seen her in what was, essentially, the state of a raging demoness, and hadn't even blinked.

Worse, she had jumped head first into a dream of her own death, and was comforting  _Raven_  instead of asking for comfort.

She can understand from the tight hold and shell-shocked look to her gloriously fiery and alive eyes that her lover is taking just as much comfort from the hug as she herself is.

Unable to resist, she places a chaste kiss on her lips before focusing on the discussion again.

"Nor I. And as I said, it wasn't a dream or a prophecy. It wasn't something my mind came up with. And it was certainly more concrete and detailed than any prophecy I've ever experienced would be."

Jinx stiffens at that, her arms tightening just a little more.

"We never really made sure that Psimon was dead. Thinking about the dream, it looked like recent events, plus our, uh,  _discussion_  earlier, together with what he can do… But, I mean,  _how_? There're mid-class demons that can't get through all the shields and wards we put around this place."

Raven winces, her arm pulsing angrily at her.

Sighing, she reluctantly pulls back from Jinx and puts her glowing arm between them.

"This would be how. It wasn't Psimon. He couldn't have gotten close enough to run into me like that, and he doesn't know demon magic," Raven explains.

Jinx stares at the marks, her own eyes beginning to glow slightly pink in anger.

"The asshole who ran into you."

"The same. It had to have been. And I think that he may have been a messenger," she adds with an almost-growl indicating how much her demonic blood is still raging.

"I know I'm not gonna' like the answer to this… What was the message, exactly?" Jinx reluctantly asks.

She finds herself desperately hoping the message wasn't meant to scare Raven away from her, though she'd never let it work if it was.

"The tattoos in tandem with the dream that was forced on me leaves two explanations. Either someone was testing out a new trick and decided I would be the perfect guinea pig for their play."

"Or…?"

The red in Raven's eyes flashes brilliantly bright, nearly overpowering the rest of the color in her irises.

Jinx stares in surprise, the sight of only Raven's irises turning red without the whole of her eyes becoming red lenses is something she'd never seen before.

Somehow, it's more startling to the meta than even the looking at the world through four eyes had been.

"It means that my brothers are here, in Jump City, and they've sounded a call for war," Raven finally responds.

The color that does exist in Jinx's face drains, and she tightens her hold even more around Raven.

"They got that close without… Oh, shit, it's because you were distracted, wasn't it?" she asks with a building misery. "Because I-"

Raven's index finger presses to Jinx's lips, cutting her off with a jerk of her head.

"You did nothing wrong. I was not cautious enough. That I didn't think on how a human would hurt me by running into me, I will admit, was because I was…  _preoccupied…_ But he shouldn't have been able to get anywhere near us without me sensing him in the first place. Somehow-"

A thoughtful expression takes over Raven's face, and she stares again at the tattoos.

"What is it?"

"What did he look like?"

Jinx's eyes widen, and she racks her brain for what the man had looked like.

Distracted or not, she was trained to pay attention to the little details of everything, or else she might come into a sudden onset of deadness.

Regardless, no matter how much energy she puts into thinking, she remembers nothing but a vague blur of movement.

He had been there one second, and gone the next.

"Shit. I can't-"

"There was nothing to remember," Raven interrupts.

Jinx merely stares blankly at her in response.

"Uh…"

" _This_ was the man," Raven growls, glaring at the tattoo. "It was a damned Shadow."

"As in… sun over something makes the ground black, or-"

"As in this."

Raven's eyes flash black, and Jinx yelps when a woman appears in the air next to them.

The woman, seemingly made entirely of writhing shadows, speeds around the room several times and is gone in the span of Jinx's next blink.

"What the-"

"Soul-self made physical. Think of it like a golem, but with psychic energy instead of earth. If one of my dear siblings decided to make one, and attach a demonic spell on it, it could get that close without me ever noticing it before it hit me. They couldn't do any real damage with it, but they could get past my defenses with it."

"Could you always do that?"

"Yes. Well, I could always generate one, since it's nothing but my soul-self in high concentration. I've never used it, though, because it takes a lot of focus and energy to control for anything more than a burst of several seconds, which would do me no good. Evidently, I had not thought of its applications as a carrier," she grouses.

The idle chatter helps to ground Raven once more, and she gently smiles at Jinx.

"I suppose, on the positive side, this definitely puts what I saw into the category of "not a prophecy," so there  _is_ that."

"Way to think positive, Rae," Jinx quips.

Her eyes, though, show her to be progressively more worried.

"Now, one thing left to do."

"And that is…?"

Raven places her other hand on the tattoo, and her eyes glow black.

An explosion of dark energy goes off around her arm, and when it clears, the tattoos are gone.

Oily, black smoke rises into the air, and for a moment, Raven basks in the satisfactory feeling of the energy returning as a spear into the origin of her curse.

She hopes that it cripples whichever sibling had dared to torment her, but isn't that optimistic.

The warm feeling of hitting her sibling back, hard, disappears in an instant, though.

She feels a wave of energy run through the shields around her home, and her heart skips a beat.

When Jinx sees her lover's cloak materialize around her body in a dark cloud, she lunges to her feet and runs over to her own clothes.

She feels the ripples of power going through her apartment, as well, and no words need to be spoken.

"I'm sorry," Raven mutters.

Jinx merely shrugs, pulling the sturdiest pieces of leather clothes she owns onto her body.

"The things that need safeguarding are at the base with Giz. It's just a house. I don't think I'll be getting my security deposit back, though," she quips while pulling a duffel bag out of their closet.

Raven watches the meta slip a large, black tome into the bag, along with a framed photo and a small pile of clothes.

Last is a small, silver jewelry box, which gives off a warm, tingling sensation as Jinx shoves it into the bag.

Once the bag is zipped closed, she rushes to Raven's side.

"Only things that matter to me in this place. Some good memories here, but considering the memories all have you in them, I figure that anywhere that I'm with you is home," she explains.

Despite her guilt, Raven pulls her into a deep kiss, her emotions flowing into Jinx.

The meta weeps at the sensation, before a warning vibrates through their barriers.

Feeling it, a bubble of soul-self rises into existence around the women before sinking into the floor.

Raven and Jinx come up in an alley on the other side of Jump City, at the same moment a loud explosion sounds in the distance…  
 ************************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Not going to lie, I had a hard time with the dream. I wasn't sure to begin with how I wanted to format it, I wasn't sure how I wanted it to come across to Jinx, and since I've never been to a handfasting ritual, I pretty much stuck to the end of the ceremony as the starting point of the dream. I hope that it works out for the readers, though.

Things are about to get action-packed. I hope you're all enjoying thus far, and looking forward to what comes next. See you all next time!


	32. Rumble

# XXXI. Rumble

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

As flames and smoke flood the night sky, Raven winces.

"I'm  _so_ sorry," she bemoans.

In hindsight, setting off the curse had been a  _really_ stupid idea.

By shooting the energy in the mark back at her brother, she had easily worked right past the barriers she and Jinx had painstakingly constructed.

"It wouldn'ta' bought us much more time if you'd decided to just leave it on," Jinx soothes. "The next time you left, they'd've been on your ass."

Raven simply stares at the billowing flames, her face contorted in a frown.

Jinx isn't the only one with good memories in the apartment.

It had always served as a comfort, that no matter what hellhole they were in while working for the D.M.A., or how long they were hunting for the stolen magic weapons, they'd always eventually had the apartment to come home to.

She watches a small part of her life go up in flames, only comforted by Jinx's familiar body at her side.

"I could've contained the energy. Could've sent it through a portal, circumvented it coming right from our home… I just blew it apart. I was angry, and it made me stupid. So, so stupid," Raven mutters.

"Okay, I'll admit, not one of your best moments," Jinx reluctantly agrees.

At Raven's miserable expression, the meta presses on.

"But you were damn right to be angry. Raven, what they made you watch was fucked up. Honestly? If it were me, I'd've probably lost my shit and gotten that damned thing off my arm the second I saw it. And  _you_ didn't blow the wards. Something that did  _that_ ," Jinx growls with a sweeping gesture to their former home, "to the defenses we had would've damn near killed you if it'd stayed on you."

Raven reluctantly nods in agreement, though the guilt remains heavy.

Seeing it, Jinx waves the duffel bag in front of her face, metal clanking together inside.

"Besides, I got all I give a shit about with me."

She tightens her hold on Raven's side in emphasis, her eyes glowing brightly in the dark.

"That was just a couple walls. Well-reinforced, enjoyable walls, but just walls. Besides, I was thinkin' that we might start looking for somethin' a bit homier once all this is done, anyways."

"Then that will be what we do. Perhaps a place that can house Melvin and her brothers for occasional visits," Raven muses with a small smile.

Jinx grins at that, taking a step back.

"That sounds wonderful. Though we could probably talk about the "occasional visits" part. For now, though, how about we get way the hell out of here?"

A pulse of psychic energy rises through the billowing flames, and Raven feels something searching for them.

" _Caecus_ ," Raven hisses.

Jinx shudders as magic washes over her, and she suddenly feels as though the world around her is dulled.

"Think that'll work?"

Raven nods, turning and taking off at a run with Jinx right beside her.

"Long enough for that bubble to be the end of our trail."

"No flying," Jinx comments.

"And no teleportation. We'll leave as little a trail for whatever is going to be following us to use," Raven agrees.

"So where do we run, then? We sure as hell can't get to any barriers on foot."

Raven's eyes move around as they run, her eyes seeming to glow with calculation.

"Options aren't good. We either run somewhere that isn't populated and stand against them, or run somewhere they either can't or won't go."

"A church, maybe?" Jinx proposes.

"Saying I'm not sure whether I could enter a church earlier wasn't banter. I honestly don't know, and I've never really felt like risking trying it. It might work. But if I can get in, then they can, so-"

"It'd only work for me if it worked at all," Jinx finishes. "Got it. That's not happening."

Jinx frowns in thought as well, and they turn a corner.

Their plans are interrupted by extremely loud, booming sounds that flood the air nearby.

"Sounds like a fight," Jinx muses.

The sky is filled with a brilliant burst of blue light, windows nearby shattering as it passes.

"And that was Victor," Raven sighs.

"How long will this spell last?"

As if in some divine mockery, the world snaps back into sharp focus around the women.

"Why? Why the hell would I ask something to tempt shit like that? You'd think I'd've learned better," Jinx groans. "So run or go see what's up?"

Before Raven can answer, her chakra gem gains a red glow, and Jinx's eyes widen as the Mark of Skaath appears in a ghostly, pink outline on her forehead.

"Troia might be able to match a demon's brute strength. And she has mystical knowledge, as does Zatanna. At the very least, we can throw our trail off a little more with everything Zatanna's throwing around."

On cue, the sorceress screams something unintelligible, and a pulse of magic runs through the air.

With a grimace, Jinx agrees and they run towards the fray.

Seeing the Titans East in the middle of fighting the Titans when they come out of the alley is a brief surprise.

Not letting it throw them too much, the women stop to take the scene in.

Nightwing rushes at a woman dressed in a Batman-like uniform, a glowing gold bat outlined across her chest.

As he swings his staff down at the woman's head, she steps into the charge and spins her foot into his knee and shoves, sending him sailing through the air.

While he recovers, Zatanna points at Batgirl and her eyes glow white.

"Detcart-"

Before she can finish her spell, the assassin lunges forward.

Zatanna barely dodges the fist aimed at her throat, but finds herself unable to mutter any spells while dancing around the following attacks.

Something explodes to their side, and Raven's gaze moves to the second fight in the street.

Troia jumps up from the concrete crater around her body, her eyes narrowed in wrath.

As the women watch, the blonde rushes through the air at a large, muscular man with glowing, red eyes.

Superman's logo rests on the man's chest, reversed and dark on his shredded black shirt.

Troia uses the symbol as a target, slamming her fist straight into the S's center.

The Bizarro clone grunts as his feet leave the ground, his body rushing through three large SUVs before rolling to a stop.

Troia merely growls and rushes through the air after him, blood coating her knuckles.

Another of Cyborg's sonic blasts rushes into the sky, bringing their attention to the last fight.

Deathstroke flips high into the air over the blast, letting an office building take the hit in his place.

While he's coming down to the road, Kid Flash rushes forward with a fist cocked back.

Despite his body almost being invisible from his speed, Deathstroke watches him approach with a narrowed eye.

While falling, he curls into himself and seems to push off some unseen surface.

As his body spins, Raven spots a flash of gold near the mercenary's body, and her eyes widen.

"Kid Flash, pull back!"

Her warning reaches Kid Flash just in time, and he immediately changes course.

Deathstroke comes out of his spin and stabs the sword he holds into the ground where the speedster would have been.

The golden blade glows, and the ground cracks in a massive circle around the blade's tip.

Deathstroke looks over at the new interruption and finds Raven glaring at the sword.

"What the hell is that thing?" Jinx demands.

The meta's hair rises at the power surging through the air, letting her know that whatever the weapon is, she doesn't want to be anywhere near it.

Raven, though, has no such problem.

She sees the sword for what it is, and knows that it needs to be taken from the mercenary's hands as soon as possible.

"Jinx, Gamma-6," she growls.

With a nod, the meta follows after the rushing psychic without anything else needing to be said.

"Kid Flash, go help with Batgirl. Cyborg, cover fire," Raven commands as they pass the men.

The seriousness of her tone leaves no room for argument, and Batgirl soon finds herself facing a red and yellow whirlwind.

Deathstroke dodges out of the way of another sonic blast, putting him right in the path of a large hex bolt.

Seeing the attack coming at the last moment, Deathstroke slices the bolt in half.

Pink sparks rise along the sword's surface, and he swings the blade back.

Jinx dives to the side, just as the reflected hex energy causes the ground to implode.

"What kind of sword  _is_ that?" she growls.

"The old world magic kind," he responds with his sneer coming across clearly in his tone.

With his attention on the meta, Raven is able to rise from a portal behind him without notice.

As soon as she swings at him, though, he ducks beneath her fist and slices at her midsection.

Her body immediately turns into a black raven, and she materializes again behind him with a claw of soul-self already swinging at him.

She gasps as he brings the blade straight through the limb, a cut shining gold opening on her real arm.

"Reckless," he chastises.

Raven ignores the blistering pain, a burst of black energy quickly washing over the wound and sealing it.

"How do you have that?" she demands through clenched teeth.

She can feel his amusement rolling from him in waves, causing the red specks in her eyes to brighten.

"Beat me and I'll tell you."

"You have no idea what you're playing with,  _colonel_ ," she argues.

"Oh, but I  _do_ ," he retorts before stabbing at her.

As Raven dodges to the side, Jinx moves in and launches another hex bolt at Deathstroke's blind spot.

Once again, he seems to have a way of seeing everywhere at once.

He rolls beneath the hex bolt and comes to his feet with the sword heading for Jinx's neck.

With grit teeth, she pushes into a handspring and somersaults backwards, out of his attack.

As she moves, the ground lights up with pulses of pink magic, and the road quickly disintegrates beneath him.

He quickly buries the sword into the edge of the cracked ground, balancing perfectly on the sword's hilt.

Jinx gapes at him, the sword not so much as wavering despite the man's weight directly on top of it.

"What the hell  _is_ that thing?"

"It's the sword of kings, the Excalibur, which I just so happened to luck my way into owning," he responds easily, unfazed by Jinx's shock.

Cyborg acts on the distraction and shoots his cannon again, the attack crashing into his undefended side.

The mercenary kicks downward, and he rises while the blade comes free.

Another crater appears where the energy hits, raining concrete onto the women.

Raven watches the man come back down to the ground, still exuding an air of confidence.

She does not, however, let his confidence distract from the tremors rocking his arms, nor the rapid speed of his chest's rises and falls.

The pain in her forehead grows worse, and Raven rushes through the air at him.

"Azarath Met-"

He jumps forward to meet her charge, swiping Excalibur at her face.

She drops out of the air, and as he sails over her, she sends a powerful kick into his stomach.

"-rion  _Zinthos_!"

Her eyes flare red, and black light explodes around them as she connects.

He grunts as his body is sent soaring uncontrollably into the inside wall of Jinx's crater.

He falls limply to the ground, the armor bent and snapped around a foot-shaped indent.

She flies after him, but before she can reach his body, the sword glows brightly.

He pushes off from the concrete, his body surrounded in a golden aura.

"Ouch."

Jinx moves to Raven's side, her eyes glowing a dark pink.

They join hands, and magic begins coiling around them as their energies flow together.

"So, invincibility, huh?" Jinx quips while pink sparks begin popping in and out of existence around her fingers.

"Close enough to it," he responds while stalking towards them.

"We'll see.  _Impedio_!"

The ground beneath Deathstroke turns black, and he grunts as his feet are pulled down into the concrete.

Like quicksand, the liquefied road sucks him downward until his waist is beneath the ground.

It instantly hardens around him, pressing into his legs and pinning his entire lower body down.

Jinx points at his hand, still clutching to Excalibur, and the sparks turn into a large, pink spike of energy.

"Drop the sword, or I find out what happens when you mix old magic and chaos magic together, with a human in the middle," the meta commands.

"Not a pleasant concept," Raven adds.

Her eyes flash black, and the hexbolt turns darker, almost red, from the influx of soul-self to Jinx's power.

As the bolt grows larger, Deathstroke goes utterly still.

Something moves through the air, and Raven's head snaps in the direction of the demonic energy.

A loud snarl brings her attention back, and her heart squeezes at the sudden wildness that appears in Deathstroke's visible eye.

It's wide, with a pinprick of a pupil.

More snarling sounds rise from his throat, and with a growl, he slams Excalibur down on the road.

The concrete explodes apart around him, the golden aura surrounding his body seeming like a nova to Raven's pained eyes.

Anger slams into her mental barriers, coming from the inexplicably enraged mercenary.

" _Now_ , Jinx!"

The meta releases the blast, the ground tearing apart beneath it as it flies.

Deathstroke rushes towards the bolt, bringing the sword back in preparation for a swing.

Seeing it, Jinx begins blasting more and more bolts into it, making it grow to the size of a small car.

The blade changes, seeming to become nothing but the golden energy it exudes, and Deathstroke's entire body follows suit.

When he hits the hexbolt, light floods the intersection, blinding everyone.

Raven's eyesight is the first to recover, and her heart skips a beat at what she sees.

Deathstroke doesn't stop under the force of the magical detonation, and continues rushing straight for the blinded Jinx.

By the time the meta's eyesight returns, he's practically on top of her, Excalibur already mid-swing.

Raven, still holding onto the meta's hand, pulls her out of the way and dances back from Deathstroke's swing.

He turns to follow only to find four hellish, red eyes glaring back at him, though Raven's skin is still pale and her tattoos aren't apparent.

He doesn't have time to react as a fist of soul-self crashes into his chest and pushes him back.

As he resists with the sword's power, her hand clenches and the magical construct splits apart.

The golden aura around him quickly dwindles as soul-self begins stabbing and smacking at him from all directions, his body caught in the center of a black cage of Raven's energy.

He begins cutting the cage apart, wildly swinging his way out of it.

Raven moves towards him while he's distracted, waiting for her chance.

When it appears, she acts in a second, and he grunts as a massive black fist crushes him into the concrete.

The hand closes, and his armor begins creaking and snapping under the pressure.

Raven stands over him, all four eyes glaring wrathfully down at him.

While she keeps supplying the hand with energy to keep him contained, she kneels next to him.

"I'd've thought you would've figured out how to avoid these kinds of things after escaping my father's clutches," she muses.

She places a hand on his forehead, and all four eyes give off a burst of white light.

" _ **Persolvo**_ **,** " she hisses, her voice echoing in the air.

He merely glares at her in response, though the small, pinkish glow to his eye vanishes and his pupil returns to its normal size.

"It would seem I have not," he responds.

"Pity. Work on that. Now if you don't mind-"

Her free hand swings down, and he grunts at the sickening  _crunch_ that sounds from his fist.

The hand slackens immediately, and she grabs Excalibur up before he can grip it again.

"-I have need of this."

"You could've simply  _asked_ ," he mocks.

She shrugs, not letting the pressure off of him even as she holds the sword in another fist of soul-self, not quite ready to touch the weapon yet.

"Nothing personal. Since I'm not exactly above board anymore, I can't even really take some stance above you for attacking my former team. That said, any time you ever think of hurting my woman again, possessed or not, just remember that I could've done to your skull what I did to your hand just now, and that was a light tap."

He seems amused by her threat, though he also doesn't tempt her to prove her words.

Seeing him shrug and stop resisting, she rises back to her full height and pulls Excalibur to the corresponding hand.

She turns to face the direction she feels her sibling's energy in, all four eyes narrowed in focus.

As soon as the hilt of the magical sword connects with her palm, her entire body ignites with power, her every muscle feeling supercharged under its influence…  
 *************************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Caecus- Latin: "Unseen, invisible, hidden, etc."

Impedio- Latin: "impede, ensnare, obstruct, etc."

Persolvo- Latin: "release"

Some comic book trivia:

Cassandra Cain is the Batgirl after Barbara Gordon, and got injected with a serum that put her under Deathstroke's (Slade from the cartoon) control. Match is the Bizarro copy of Superboy, and in the comics Deathstroke uses Match to fight Wonder Girl/Troia due to her being Superboy's girlfriend. There are 7 other Titans East members, but I took Inertia out of commission in the first part of the story and I don't know anything about 5 of the others, so I couldn't write them.

We're getting into the more dangerous items that've been stolen, now. Hope that Raven can handle something like Excalibur, or not, either way it could make the fight interesting. I hope everyone's enjoying so far, and I look forward to your feedback. See you all next time!


	33. Kin

# XXXII. Kin

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven's body is surrounded in a large, golden aura, and her hand reflexively clamps down on the silver hilt.

Raven's eyes flash with a similar light before slamming shut, her teeth grit in the face of the blistering pain spreading through her entire body.

Agony ripples through her head, her hand pressing against her forehead in a desperate attempt to force it away.

Her gem shines brightly within the colored sphere, and Jinx fights the urge to rush towards her lover as the aura takes on the form of a raven around her.

The psychic's legs tremble as a crushing force presses down on her.

" _A demon has no right to wield this blade_ ," a voice warns, echoing through her skull.

"T-Temporary exception," Raven gasps.

The pressure lessens somewhat, at least allowing her to stand straight again, though the pain remains.

" _What reason_?"

Raven's body tenses, and she pulls on the power from the sword.

Her mind falls into the blade's memories, many kings' and warriors' battles coming to her.

Finally, she finds the memory of an old sorcerer, and focuses her attention on him as he wields the blade shortly after its creation.

His words flow through her mind, and she pulls back to her body.

"I'll return you to the homeland! _ **Tá gá dom do chumhacht sula féidir liom, cé. Bow le mo chomhghuaillíocht sealadach**_.," she hisses, her voice guttural and echoing as it leaves her.

The sword pulses with energy, and her pain vanishes in an instant, leaving her strong once more, if slightly shaky and heavily sweating.

The gold shrinks around her, compressing into a second, shining skin around her.

Her four eyes open again to reveal glowing, pure white lenses.

"R-Rae?" Jinx asks, taking a tentative step towards her.

"I'm okay," Raven responds, though her eyes stay locked on the near distance.

Jinx follows her gaze to find a shadow approaching from the other side of the street.

The closer the shadow gets, the more intense the fighting, which had stopped as everyone gawked at Raven's struggle, becomes.

The shadow moves past Batgirl as though it doesn't exist, the assassin not stopping her assault on the battered and bruised Kid Flash for an instant.

As the women watch, Zatanna's eyes flash white, and she mutters something that ends up smashing the woman into the road.

The gold brightens for an instant, and Raven raises a brow at the man.

"That won't work on me at the moment," she states.

A chuckle rises, and as Jinx watches, the shadows dissolve, leaving a man in their place.

A very tall man, who Jinx is fairly certain would terrify most people on first glance.

The man is at least six feet tall, and half as wide.

Jinx's brief relief over him being undoubtedly slow vanishes when she realizes his entire body seems made of pure muscle.

Veins and muscles cast harsh shadows across his brown skin, his entire body seeming to ripple with his every step towards them.

Long, thin rows of black hair curve around his scalp, seeming to pull his entire face taut.

And beneath the cornrows are four slitted, red lenses that match Raven's.

He comes to a stop several paces away from the women, an amused smirk on his lips as his skin shifts to being dark red.

" _ **Pride**_ **,** " he states in a smooth, smoky voice.

Raven's eyes narrow, and Jinx doesn't miss how tightly she grips the sword's handle.

"It's Raven," she bites out.

The statement seems to amuse him, and a deep rumble of laughter sounds.

" _ **Right. Then you can call me Jared,**_ **sis** ," he laughs.

His amusement vanishes, and he turns to angle his body towards the group fighting Batgirl.

His hand rises up, and a brief pulse of red light shines around his palm.

Both women's eyes widen as the fighters change, becoming animalistic.

Zatanna's eyes flash brightly, and a pulse of magic leaves her cupped hands.

The attack slams into Batgirl's side, and she screams while her body leaves the ground.

Kid Flash follows through, his body causing a sonic boom as he rushes in to punch her exposed stomach.

When she slams into a nearby building, smoke rises in a column from her back, and her body twitches.

While she's down, Nightwing growls and lunges through the air, aiming his bow staff for her skull.

Batgirl reacts by rolling under him and swiping her foot out.

While he's sprawling to the ground, she brings out a batarang and jumps after him, aiming the blade for his throat.

Raven reacts, her free hand flinging out.

The aura around her pulses, and soul-self suddenly rises from the shadows, trapping all four fighters in black cages.

Something explodes behind her, and she turns to find Troia slamming Match into the road, sending strips of concrete flying upwards around them.

Even in the dark, Raven sees a lot of blood covering the Amazon's fists.

Her eyes darken again, and the two are also wrapped in cages.

A blue glow is noticed nearby, and Jared stares in surprise at the sonic blast rushing towards him.

" _ **Interesting,**_ " he laughs before knocking the attack skyward.

Before Cyborg can react, a red fist lashes up and slams him into the pavement, his head cracking the road with each time he skids.

When he comes down in the final bounce, another pulse of red appears, and he screams as his body is hurled high into the distance.

" _ **Rare to find someone that can't be taken in by us. Not that it'll help you now, since this'll be long-over by the time he can get back, if he can survive that landing,**_ " Jared laughs.

His eyes pulse with red light, and the fighters begin to smash their weapons against the black bars surrounding them.

Jinx doesn't miss the pain that's clear on the psychic's face, even though it lasts for the barest of moments.

The stress of extending her soul-self so much begins to eat away at Raven, one of her eyes being dulled to nothing but vague blurs from the strain.

The Excalibur seems to pick up on the stresses of her body, and the golden light pours into her body, rejuvenating her almost instantly.

As she recovers, though, she notices that the energy surrounding her dims, just slightly.

" _It's a weapon, not a battery,_ " the sword's spirit growls.

" _ **I know**_ ," she hisses back.

As they struggle against her, she turns her gaze to her half-brother, her gaze narrowed.

" _ **You can also call me Wrath**_ ," Jared explains.

"You cursed those two?" she asks with a nod in Nightwing and Zatanna's direction.

" _ **Yup. Well, it was a team effort with two of your other brothers.**_ "

He points at her, and Raven grunts as a stream of red light rushes against her.

Even in the face of Excalibur's protective armor, her brother's soul-self slips past.

For a second, an incredible, inexplicable anger sweeps through her mind.

While she resists the energy, her body turns scarlet.

Her teeth clench and her gaze moves to first Deathstroke, then Zatanna and Nightwing.

"Raven," Jinx demands, seeing something shift in her lover's expression.

Her voice wars with the force in Raven's mind, and the psychic hisses.

" _Amadán_ ," the voice from Excalibur clucks.

The pressure returns from the sword, and she winces while the force in her mind is pushed away.

Raven glares down at the sword, eyebrow raised.

" _ **Cillus**_ ," she hisses back.

Her eyes focus back on Jared, and his own gaze widens in momentary surprise.

" _ **Cute**_ ," she muses.

She brings Excalibur up, and as she does, the golden light expands around her.

"What do you want, dick?" Jinx demands, her eyes and hands both glowing neon pink.

He seems to only notice the meta then, and the grin that forms sends a wave of revulsion through her.

" _ **You brought your pet. Jacob said that he had**_ **lots**   _ **of fun playing around in your head when he found out about**_ her," Jared laughs.

Raven's anger is entirely her own this time, the metal creaking in her tightened hand.

" _ **Was he our assailant today?**_ "

Jared shrugs, his grin only growing.

" _ **He gave you the mark.**_ **I** _ **gave you the irrational anger that let me blow your house to hell**_ ," he laughs. " _ **Our oldest brother said you'd be too calm to fuck with. Glad you disappointed!**_ "

"Hey, I asked you a question," Jinx growls. "Why're you here?"

" _ **The pet's uppity**_ ," Jared responds undeterred. " _ **Should slap some sense into her**_."

He grunts as Raven's soul-self lashes out, a black fist rushing into his chest and pushing him back.

As soon as he stops sliding, the hand disappears, though Jinx notices a pinprick of the black energy seep into Jared's arm as it vanishes.

" _ **Do**_ **not** _ **call her a pet**_ ," Raven snarls.

" _ **She's**_ **not** _ **? She's too pathetic to be-**_ "

Before he can finish, a blast of pink light rockets towards him.

When he dodges out of the way, Jinx's hand jerks downward, her hexbolt following the motion.

It crashes into the ground, and he grunts in surprise as the road practically dissolves in a wave from under him.

While he's falling, Jinx takes aim at where she saw Raven's soul-self, and shoots a neon spark at him.

It collides with the spot in his arm, but seems to disperse harmlessly from his body.

" _ **A pet that doesn't even have much of a bite, at that,**_ " he mocks. " _ **As for why I'm here, killing you or getting you to join us, how this goes depends on if you can actually put up a fight.**_ "

Neither woman rises to the bait, their shared smirk missed as Jared pushes his way back to solid ground.

As he stands tall once again, the Titans and Batgirl redouble their struggles against their black cages, drawing another wince from Raven.

" _ **They'll wear themselves to death while under my power,**_ " Jared taunts. " _ **'Course, if you kill me, it'd get rid of that problem, but since**_ **you're** _ **under my control, too, I don't think you can do much, either.**_ "

Raven's brow rises at that, not letting her amusement show.

" _ **I would like to test that theory, actually**_ **,** " she responds.

" _ **Ha! You fight me, and you need to go at me with everything you've got,**_ **sis** _ **! The second you do, they're going to get free and I'll make sure they attack you just as readily as they want to against each other right now. You can't kill**_ them  _ **like you think you can me, can you?**_ " Jared mocks.

Raven glares at him as her mind goes to work.

Jinx stares at the trapped villains and Titans, her hands releasing pink sparks.

"Then it's good that she's not solo out here, isn't it?" she quips at the demonling.

" _ **You're really damn annoying**_ ," he hisses.

She simply flashes him her Cheshire smile, her eyes glowing darkly.

"Yep."

She snaps her fingers, and his eyes widen as his shoulder glows pink.

" _ **Azarath Metrion Zinthos**_!"

Just as Raven finishes her own chant, Jared catches on and his entire body flashes red.

The women watch as he rematerializes several steps back, a massive explosion setting off where he'd stood.

" _ **That could've killed me**_ ," he mutters in disbelief.

"Would. That  _would_  have killed you," Jinx corrects with an even larger grin. "You were saying something about how I don't have much of a bite before, right? Ever mess with a nest of scorpions?"

" _ **What did you do**_?" he demands, again ignoring her.

"Rae, you take care of him. Take your time, maybe get some info that could help us. I've got your back if they try anything," Jinx states, ignoring him as she turns to the caged fighters.

The road around them glows vibrant pink, and a smirk creeps across Raven's lips.

" _ **Don't hurt them too much, if you can help it.**_ "

She grins in answer, her eyes becoming complete lenses.

"I'll give it my best shot."

Raven's body suddenly disappears into the ground, and at once, each of her cages evaporates.

Jinx finds herself surprised that she isn't immediately rushed.

Instead, the heroes and villains alike stand utterly still where they'd been pinned, staring at the women.

When the demonling rises once more, Excalibur is mid-motion, slicing towards Jared's neck.

Jared is astonishingly quick for his size, Raven discovers.

He spins on the ball of his left foot and kicks.

Before his foot connects with her, a shell of red soul-self encases the limb.

It's only thanks to her own supernatural reflexes that she's able to bring the magical sword between them, letting the metal take the brunt of the impact.

Even still, pain vibrates from the sword up to her shoulders.

" _The sword can't break. Strikes like that will naturally go to through the path of least resistance_ ," the sword's spirit advises.

She ignores it, focusing on pushing the pain down.

" _ **Noted**_ ," she hisses once feeling returns to her limbs.

Jared hunches over, and the ground violently trembles as he charges at his sister.

Her eyes narrow as she looks for her opportunity.

When he next swings his fist at her, she jumps high into the air and pushes off a platform of soul-self that forms.

The push carries her over her half-brother, and she brings the sword down as she passes.

The metal begins digging into his shoulder, his armor-like flesh splitting under the golden aura.

Before she can do significant damage, his body explodes in tendrils of red energy and vanishes from under her.

She lunges into a roll the second her feet touch the ground, her instinct just barely saving her from the impact of his massive fist.

She comes up facing him, sword at the ready, only to find him gone again.

Her hands move seemingly of their own accord, putting Excalibur between her skull and his fists as he fell from above.

Her eyes flash black, and soul-self coats the sword just before he lands, the weight of the hit burying her feet into the concrete.

He pulls back and swung for her skull while she's stuck, expecting to cave her head in with the strike.

Anger pulses through Raven, and her body evaporates in soul-self.

Instead of moving behind him, she coils the energy around his outstretched arm, dragging Excalibur's edge across the flesh as she went.

Blood flows down his entire arm as she lands several feet away, her eyes not leaving him for a second.

" _ **You've got some good instincts,**_ **sis** ," Jared laughs whilst shaking out his fist.

It doesn't escape her that they were the only ones fighting, and alarm bells begin setting off in her mind.

Seeming to read her mind, Jared laughs with a grin that spreads from ear-to-ear.

" _ **No more theatrics. I can't waste much on them, either. We**_ **are** _ **related, after all. As long as the pet doesn't help you, they can stay where they are. Do you want to know why they aren't helping you?**_ "

" _ **Don't really care**_ ," she retorts before lunging at him again.

He dissolves once more, and she immediately leaps from the ground to follow after his astral body.

The chase lasts for several seconds before she finds a chunk of pavement flying at her face.

When she phases through, she reforms in the direct path of his fist.

She drops to the ground, turning into a shadow that speeds across under him.

He jumps to the side to avoid her as she explodes upward, Excalibur singing as it cuts through the air.

His entire body becomes wrapped in red soul-self and he dives for her before her feet touch the ground.

His weight crashes into her, the golden aura shimmering violently around her body from the impact.

Her eyes narrow as the ground rushes towards them, and the air comes alive around them.

" _ **Verto**_!"

Their bodies are coated in a black sphere for a moment, and it clears away at the same time that Jared's body smashes into the ground.

Raven quickly shoves off from atop his chest, gouging a chunk of skin from him as she moved backward.

" _ **Playing dirty, huh? Alright**_ ," he laughs.

He rises to his feet and spits a glob of blood to the ground, eyes narrowed at her.

His upper two eyes glow bright red, and Raven immediately lifts into the air.

Concentrated magic builds within the demonling's head, and from his eyes a massive red beam releases.

A wall of black snaps into existence in front of her at the same time the eldritch blast strikes.

Her soul-self bends and warbles from the impact, and she let her body drop down before the attack explodes through.

" _ **I've been at this longer than you,**_ **sis** ," he mocks.

" _ **So I can see,**_ " she concedes between gasping breaths.

He grins at the trembles rocking through her body, her entire form covered in sweat.

" _ **Still, you're putting up a damn better fight than I was expecting. So about your friends… At this very moment, they're wondering if this is all just a show to endear you to them,**_ " he laughs.

The thought disturbs her, but she refuses to show such a response to him, merely tightening her grip on Excalibur's hilt.

" _ **Even better, I'm only messing with those two with that. Mind control's hard as hell, even with how simple it is with those two. The others aren't planning on attacking you while your back's turned, but since they're the leaders, I'm sure I can convince them to make a move**_ ," he continues with a sneer.

Anger pulses through her, and she notices his influence in it immediately.

" _ **We're finishing this,**_ **now!** "

Her hands stretch apart, and the air shines with crackles of purple energy, her eyes turning to pure obsidian.

Energy begins sparking with golden fire, and her entire body becomes a single point of throbbing pain.

She clenches her teeth and lets it feed on her magic, never letting her eyes leave him for even an instant.

His hairs rise on the base of his neck, and Jared immediately charges at her.

" _ **Léirscr-**_!"

Her spell is interrupted when Jared turns into soul-self and materializes in front of her.

She has no time to respond before his fist slams straight into her wrist, and Excalibur goes soaring free from her grip.

With her arm entirely numb, she sends a limb of soul-self after the blade and grabs at its hilt.

He senses the impending danger and immediately rushes away form her encased in soul-self to increase his speed.

Each burst of energy sends a wall of concrete upward, blocking the incoming strike more effectively while his inertia forces him to continue in a straight line.

Her limb snaps past her and releases the metal, sending the magical sword careening after him fast enough to release a small explosion of sound.

As though the road were as sturdy as heated butter, Excalibur rips its way after the fleeing demonling.

Seeing it coming, he ignores his exhaustion and forces himself to become fully coated in his astral body.

Even in the midst of teleporting, the sword manages to rip a piece of his side free.

He crashes to the ground in a pile of limbs, pain wracking through his body.

His body slowly loses its color, turning to a dark shade of mocha.

While his second set of eyes vanish, his entire body seems to shrink and lose its armor.

Glaring at her, he presses down on his side to stay the bloodflow.

"Con-Contrarium," he gasps in clear agony.

A thick stream of black smoke moves through the air towards him, and as Raven watches, the same smoke leaks out from Zatanna's and Nightwing's eyes and mouths to join it.

When the smoke leaves them, the corruption in their auras utterly vanishes and leaves them looking shaken and confused.

The smoke coalesces around his body, and his skin seems to absorb the vapors in.

His body glows black for a moment, and when the glow disappears, his body is once more whole.

He stands on shaking legs, his entire body wracked with tremors that more than match Raven's.

"K-kudos to you, you almost killed me there. We'll be coming b-back for you," he stutters.

With those ominous words, his body sinks into the ground and Raven no longer feels his presence.

As soon as he's gone, Raven drops to the road on her backside.

The red leaves her flesh, and she lies gasping and panting, her heart beating a painful tempo in her chest.

Jinx moves to her side, never turning her back to the heroes even with the demonling's departure.

Only when she's kneeling next to her lover do her eyes regain their whites, and she gives her a worried once-over.

While showing no physical damage, pain and exhaustion are obvious on the psychic's face, and the meta's hearing picks up on her erratic heartbeat.

Before she can vocalize her concerns, a scuffing sound reaches her ears.

She levels a glare on Zatanna, who slowly staggers towards them…  
 *************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Tá gá dom do chumhacht sula féidir liom, cé. Bow le mo chomhghuaillíocht sealadach.- Gaelic: (roughly) "I have need of your power before I can, though. Bow to my temporary alliance."

Amadán- Gaelic: "fool"; this wasn't a spell, just an insult from a smarmy magical sword

Cillus- Latin: "ass"

Verto- Latin: "swap/exchange/change/turn, etc."

The interrupted spell would have been "Léirscrios", or Gaelic for "devastation"

Contrarium- Latin: "reverse"

An eldritch blast is pure, concentrated magic, and Raven is one of the only children of Trigon not capable of using them, though she can do something similar by combining several of her other abilities which she, in turn, possesses that the others don't (at least as far as I remember).

FYI, anyone who's never tried to learn the Gaelic language, it's even worse trying to pronounce than it is to write and read.

I hope you enjoyed that, because I sure enjoyed writing it. As always, feel free to give me your inputs, be they positive or negative, and I hope you're all enjoying thus far. See you next time!


	34. Rebound

# XXXIII. Rebound

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx's eyes begin glowing once more, though far less brightly than moments before.

Zatanna's heels click loudly on the ruined road as she stumbles her way towards them, seeming drunk in how uncoordinated her movements are.

"Take another step, bunny, and I swear-"

Raven's hand latches onto the meta's arm, cutting her warning off.

"Raven?"

"I-I'm so sorry," Zatanna whispers, snapping Jinx's attention back to find her far closer than she should be.

The witch's eyes seem glassy to the meta, and horror is clearly visible through her wide-eyed gaze.

"I… I can't even start to tell you how awful I feel about what a bitch I've been," Zatanna starts again.

Raven reacts to that, slowly sitting back up with Jinx's help.

"You are free from his influence, such as it was. Leave it at that, and let us not discuss this matter further," the psychic rasps.

Wincing, she reaches her arm out into the air at her side.

Darkness slowly coils around her hand, and when the area is cleared once more, her hand is wrapped around a blackish-green stone with red veins running through it.

The stone bleeds a dim glow around her hand, which quickly spreads to the rest of her body.

When the light fades, the stone is nothing but a white circlet, and her various cuts and bruises are faded to the point of seeming to have never existed in the first place.

With a sigh, she drops the spent rock and rises to her feet.

"Remind me to pick up a few more bloodstones, will you, Jinx?"

Staring between the women, Jinx slowly nods and rises to join her lover's side.

"You okay, Rae? That-"

"Tired," Raven sighs, the black circles beneath her eyes standing out to the meta's gaze as soon as she says it. "Very, very tired. But it will work until I can rest."

Jinx begins to argue, but the expression on Raven's face stops her.

Capitalizing on the silence, Zatanna tries to speak again while wringing her gloved hands together.

"Listen, I know you have good reason to hate me, but now that I'm not being controlled anymore, I really want-"

Raven's raised hand and narrowed eyes cut the contrite witch's apology off immediately.

"Do not mistake how reality works, Zatanna. You were not controlled by Jared."

Jinx's eyes widen, her own expression one of sympathy.

"Uh, Rae, not to pick sides, but you looked ready to kill someone yourself. I don't think that she-"

"I was manipulated, yes. He made a grave mistake in doing so, as well, as I now understand how that trick of his works. You, and Richard for that matter, were not  _controlled_ , Zatanna. Your actions were your own, and while I will not hold a grudge, I will also not just forgive and forget the plans your mind came up with."

Zatanna's eyes flare in anger, and she stomps closer to the psychic.

"He was in my head! You can't say that you-"

The demonling's eyes narrow, and Zatanna takes an instinctive step backwards.

"His powers work on an empathic level," Raven interrupts. "He calls himself Wrath, and it is very fitting. What he did to you, and Richard, and on a smaller scale the others, was nothing as complex as mind control. He did not  _make_ you and Richard plan to lobotomize me. Do not mistake me, I _will_  make he and the others he spoke of pay, but where you are concerned, they merely agitated what was already there."

Zatanna's eyes widen even further, her anger doused in an instant in the face of Raven's own.

"Had Jared not done the same to me, I would be inclined to just pity you and forgive it all as the results of possession, but now that I understand his power, I cannot do so. While his ability is certainly strong, all it amounts to is weakening your inhibitions and empathically increasing the negative emotion that he holds sway over. Anger in his case, and given his suggestion, likely lust from another sibling."

"If that's true, then what was with you looking like you wanted to break them?" Jinx asks, though her sympathy is much weaker now.

"Because I still hold a grudge over the plans that led to my departure, and for as long as it took me to realize what he was doing, he put the anger that comes with it in chorus in my mind," Raven deadpans. "It is not that he was making me want to kill them, but rather that he weakened the hold I put on such thoughts so I would consider it realistically."

"So you're saying that I'm just naturally a bitch?" Zatanna demands.

"Frankly, yes. Caging me is something you thought of all on your own. You would likely not have begun putting the plans in action alone without the input of my siblings, but the thought and desire to do so in the first place was already present and required a very bare push."

"It was a demon fucking with my head! You can't really think I'd start building something like that just because-"

She cuts herself off, a wince warping her expression.

"Because you think of me as a demon like my kin are, since the first time we met," Raven finishes. "So yes, you would have. Or you would have brought the thought up eventually with someone else who would do it in your stead. Just the same way that despite his supposed love, Nightwing would have cheated eventually, whether with you through the release of his inhibitions or someone else on his own."

In the ensuing silence, Raven realizes how many eyes are on them, and her body straightens out from the hunched pose it had taken.

"At any rate, take what I've offered. We will never be friends, but given that, while not mentally controlled, your decision-making capabilities  _have_ not been at their best, neither will you be my enemy further. Take the offer for what it's worth, Zatanna, but take it nonetheless if you value your life. If you're looking for someone to apologize to, I'd recommend perhaps that Kori would be more forgiving than myself to begin with."

Shaking her head, Raven turns from the stunned witch and casts her gaze about, stopping her search only when she finds a golden glow in the near distance.

She begins floating towards the sword, only for Jinx's hand to clamp on her shoulder.

"Nuh-uh. You keep your sweet ass on the ground, Rae, and stay here. I'll get it," the meta demands.

Even were she inclined to argue with her lover despite her numbing exhaustion, she has no chance to verbalize it before the meta runs off for Excalibur.

When she isn't at Raven's side, Jinx feels her own tiredness rise for a brief moment.

Pushing through it, she makes her way to the wall of concrete, not even entirely sure if Jared or her own lover had torn this segment of the city so easily.

With a sigh, she reaches the curved ramp and finds the magical sword buried straight through the solid material, the tip of the blade standing at least a quarter of an inch from the other end.

Her mind briefly wonders if Raven always had the kind of strength needed for such a feat, just waiting under the surface, or if the damned sword and her sibling had somehow brought it out from a place that wasn't normally inside her lover.

As soon as her hand closes around the sword's hilt, though, she realizes the power had, without a doubt, been almost entirelyExcalibur's work.

As though an electric current is being run through her, her entire arm involuntarily clenches, and she grits her teeth to resist the reactionary scream that forms.

" _The demon'd be more safe 'n you_ ," an old man's voice growls in her mind.

Before she can respond, a pulse of light builds in the sword, slowly moving from the blade's tip down to her hand on the hilt.

As soon as the light touches her, she finds herself no longer on the ground, and the scream breaks free.

She hits the ground, finding the concrete to be surprisingly soft under her body as she writhes.

Her form twitches and spasms until the golden light leaves her, and as soon as it does, she begins pulling in deep gasps of air to fight the darkness at the edges of her sight.

A hand brushes against her forehead, and she casts her sight up to find Raven inverted overtop of her.

With a start, she realizes why the ground is so soft, and slowly pushes her way up from Raven's all-engulfing cloak.

"I thought… I told… you… not… to move," she wheezes.

Chuckling, Raven puts an arm around her waist and helps her stand once again, despite the occasional aftershocks running through her.

"And I didn't," her lover responds with a raised brow.

Jinx turns around and realizes that, indeed, the demonling hasn't taken one step from where she'd left her.

"I did  _not_  get thrown this far by a stupid sword," she argues with an expression that, in a more personal setting, Raven might dare to call a pout.

Choosing to wisely remain quiet on the matter, Raven shakes her head.

"No, you were only thrown about half the way here."

Jinx frowns in thought, then remembers the dark edge to her sight and frowns at Raven.

"I meant no portals, too, when I said not to move. Soon as we get the chance, you're sitting your ass down and sleeping," Jinx chastises.

To the other observers, it seems ridiculous and hilarious both to see the smaller and thinner woman giving orders so easily to the woman who had recently destroyed half of Jump City's downtown.

To Raven, she simply acknowledges the unspoken concern from the meta, giving her a nod in response.

"As soon as we're done. Now, are you going to let me take it, or would you like another simulation of what a seizure feels like?" the demonling deadpans.

The reminder of the mystic weapon makes Jinx's eyes narrow, and she turns back to face it.

"I'm not going to let a damn piece of steel kick my ass after the show you just put on. It'll make me look bad," she growls.

Jinx storms off again, not missing Raven's amused chuckle.

With Jinx heading for the sword again, the demonling chooses to take stock of the others in the area.

All of them are bruised and bleeding, seeming more damaged from their attacks on her cages than they were from each other.

Only Zatanna seems to have the fortitude to actually stand amongst them all, perhaps due to her body being accustomed to the influence of her brothers' soul-selves or perhaps because she was more practiced with mystical attacks.

Nightwing is far shakier than Zatanna, the feel of his gaze on her unfocused from where he sits on the road.

Even at the distance that separates them, Raven can sense the sorrowful emotions rolling from him.

Her mental barriers slam into place when she realizes her empathic abilities are able to reach that kind of distance, a shiver running through her.

A shriek pierces the air, bringing her attention to Jinx, and the harsh gold light surrounding her.

" _Don't put your hands on me again, chaotic one,_ " Excalibur's voice snarls in the meta's mind. " _Nothin' good will come of it_!"

Gritting her teeth, Jinx tightens her hand on the hilt despite the stabbing pain running through her.

Strangely, the longer she holds the weapon, the less pain presses into her every sense.

While Jinx is focused solely on the hilt in her clamped fist, Raven's eyes take in the display around her lover.

While the golden aura remains around the meta, pink sparks begin setting off from around her body, filling the air above with a strangely colored steam.

A realization occurs to her then, one which makes her blood feel like ice in her veins.

Forgetting her exhaustion, she immediately sinks through a portal and grabs her lover's wrist the moment she's above ground once more.

As soon as they touch, the gold arcs from Jinx and coats the demonling as well, causing both women to shudder.

"R-Raven, I can h-handle it," Jinx groans.

With her free hand, Raven points at Excalibur, and black light crackles into existence around the silver.

For a bare instant, her eyes flash black, and the sword connects with her, each feeding off the other's power.

" _Toradh anois_!" she hisses, her voice unnaturally deep outside of her demonic form.

Instantly, the aura vanishes, and Raven releases a heavy sigh as the sword falls harmlessly free from the road.

Jinx stares at the now seemingly mundane weapon in her hand, not so much as a flicker of power reaching her.

"Wh-what? Raven, did you-?"

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Raven straightens up with a sickening  _pop_ sounding from her back.

Turning to look at her lover, Jinx notices a very small flicker of gold in her eyes before it shifts to match the rest of the red.

"Whether you could handle it or not is irrelevant, Jinx. Were I not so tired, I would have insisted you let me take care of it. Chaos and Fae magics do _not_ mix well."

Noticing her pointed stare, Jinx looks at where she only now notices is a sore point on her shoulder.

Her eyes widen when they find the section of her shirt that was supposed to cover her shoulder completely gone.

The skin is pink, and she notices the edges of the fabric are charred black.

"Wha-"

Nodding, Raven steps close to her and runs a hand down her back.

"Not just there, either," the demonling explains with a wince.

Small pricks of pain flare up in various spots across the meta's back, only to disappear to Raven's cooling touch.

"Was it… Was  _I_  going to-"

"If you'd kept going. I am not the only one of us who is stubborn," Raven quips with a small smile.

She carefully extracts the sword from her lover's hands, a thrum of magic pulsing through her hand at the contact, but no aura rising up to consume her.

"Man! How come  _you_ can just hold it, and it was trying to fry me?" Jinx laments.

"In all honesty, it would have  _fried_ me, as well. I simply was desperate enough to make a contract," she responds before letting the sword's flat rest on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, did you say you made a  _contract_? Are you  _nuts_!?"

Raven winces at the shrill pitch of the meta's voice, hoping the hand caressing her lover's shoulder is comforting.

"It has been suggested before. It is not like a contract with a demon would be."

" _I beg ta' differ,_ " the voice retorts in her mind.

From the contact with Jinx, it carries to her as well, and she snickers at the blade.

"He does have a point."

"Jared was coming, and there weren't many options when it was trying to kill me. It isn't like I sold my soul or anything," Raven argues, far more defensively than she would like.

"Well, whatever. It worked out," Jinx sighs. "But seriously, the second you get the chance, I'm making sure you take it to get some rest, whether ya' like it or not."

Smirking, Raven gives her a nod before turning and beginning to aimlessly walk down the broken stretch of road.

Jinx follows after her as she suddenly starts walking, the meta finding it very confusing why her lover's strides are so easy now when not moments ago she'd looked dead on her feet.

The glimmer that she'd seen adds to her concern, too.

"Uh, Rae, you didn't siphon from the talking magical sword, right?"

Raven raises a brow at that, meeting her lover's gaze when she reaches her side.

"No. It simply gave me back the initial energy it stole when I first grabbed it," she responds with a shrug.

"Have I ever told you you're amazing?" Jinx quips before wrapping an arm tightly around her lover's waist.

"On occasion. Really, I just got lucky tonight," Raven sighs. "I'm fairly certain that in both physical and psychic aspects, I could just as easily lost as I did force a retreat."

"Well, now you know what you're dealing with," Jinx responds flippantly. "You'll soundly kick his ass next time."

"Perhaps. But I do not know that I'll like what I may become in order to do so," the demonling sighs. "He…  _they_  so easily manipulate minds. Treating humans as toys. It's vile, and I don't want to begin down a path that will make me similar."

"Or pets," Jinx supplies helpfully with her Cheshire smile.

Her expression darkens somewhat as memories of her own time being controlled by the old Brother Blood rise to the surface.

What Raven's siblings did, and at least how Jared acted, smacked of them being just as awful as the old man's voice shoved into her brain had been.

A shiver runs through her as, for a very brief moment, she ponders what life would be like if Raven had turned out to be  _anything_  like her other siblings.

More old fears rear their ugly heads, and with a barely suppressed hiss, she shoves them back into a dark corner of her mind to be ignored.

Raven watches her lover's mental struggle in silence, frowning at what she feels despite her mental locks.

"I know it doesn't need to be said, but he was wrong. You  _aren't_  a pet to me, Jinx," she supplies, thinking the meta's reaction is to her own previous statement.

Her comment seems to break Jinx from her stupor.

"Hmm? Oh, no shit," the meta responds with a shrug. "He was being an arrogant ass. Just brought up some memories…"

A thought occurs to her, and her grin comes back.

"Anyway, I'm just wondering why the hell he called you Pride. I mean, if he's Wrath, does that mean that you can do something like what he did to them, only with pride instead of being pissed off? Could you make people all irrational and stuff? It'd make for a pretty kick-ass counterattack the next time one of 'em shows up."

Raven's eyes narrow in thought, several very ugly scenarios playing out before her mind in an instant.

"Very probably. I have empathic abilities, and were I inclined to use them despite my code against it, I would likely be able to do something similar."

"Hate to break it to you, but he was able to use that empathic stuff on  _you_ , Rae. Maybe you should start thinkin' about changing your opinion on it. If for no other reason, so they can't pull that shit on you again, because I gotta' say, it's a scary idea if he'd actually been able to make you go on a rampage."

Raven winces, ignoring the others' stares as she realizes their walking has carried them to almost within earshot of the heroes and villains alike.

She slows her steps, Jinx following suit, not wanting them privy to  _this_ conversation.

"There is a reason I have that code, Jinx, even after I embraced my own emotions. They're a very dangerous double-edged sword, and I… I loathe the idea of what I could become if I let those powers out. Especially now that I understand what my siblings can do."

"Again, he almost had you seeing red for a second there, Rae. You think it would've happened like that if you were better with that stuff?"

Raven raises a brow at that, the flecks of red burning ever so slightly brighter in her gaze.

"I did not say I was  _unskilled_. I said that they're dangerous. You should know how great a difference that can be with me by now," she points out.

Jinx shrugs and continues on, refusing to let it rest at that.

"More dangerous than having them attack again and fucking with your head? I know you said they can't control your mind, but I'm bettin' that a few of them together could cause some  _really_ nasty reactions if they mixed. Like, say, wrath and lust being put together with something distracting like greed to make a very dead Jinx before you even know what's happening?"

Raven completely freezes, horror rolling through her.

"They already work together, goin' by what he said. Two of 'em worked on birdbrain and the bunny, and at least two of them were together in your head to make our apartment go  _boom_ ," Jinx continues.

"You could stop me before that happened," Raven argues, though her voice is far less sturdy than she'd like.

Jinx moves to stand in front of her, making the demonling meet her eyes.

"But I don't  _ever_  want to have to. So please consider it, okay? Just  _consider_  it."

Her hand coils up around Raven's neck, and she lightly caresses the clammy skin there, the demonling's entire body seeming paler than usual.

"You're afraid that you'd get like them, like the old man, right? That if you started playing with people's emotions, it'd give you some kind of… I dunno'…  _god complex_ or somethin', right?"

Raven's face warms, once again amazed at how well the meta has come to understand her, and her mind.

"That is certainly among the concerns, yes," Raven agrees as she fights her blush. "There are other dangers, as well."

"And unlike any of them, you've got a huge roadblock between you and those problems," Jinx declares.

Grabbing Raven's free hand, she brings it up to cup her own cheek, shivering at how cold her lover's skin is.

A soft smile curls Raven's lips, and she leans forward to rest her forehead on the meta's.

"Of course, you're right. I will…  _consider_  the possibilities," she agrees.

"And if you ever feel like things're gettin' out of hand, I'll be there to kick your ass back to sanity," Jinx supplies with a toothy grin.

Showing her own grin, Raven tilts her head slightly and their lips meet, a fire pulsing through both women at the contact.

Realizing the others are still watching, including her lover's ex-boyfriend, Raven reluctantly breaks the kiss off, though her lips remain locked into a small smile.

"Work remains to be done," she sighs.

"Doesn't it always?" Jinx laughs.

"Indeed. At any rate, considering things now, we've got a place to really start looking now to end this," Raven declares with a grin.

The women sink into a portal, and are the next moment standing next to Deathstroke, his visible eye staring at the two with what Raven can tell is amusement.

When Raven adjusts the sword on her shoulder, golden sparks fly off and crackle out of existence at his feet.

"It's so  _nice_  to see you're no longer that awkward teen," he muses. "You handle that blade like a natural. Surprising, actually, since I always understood it that demons and faeries have a rather…  _adversarial_ … relationship."

"Right back at you," Raven deadpans. "How'd you get something so dangerous, anyways? I'd've thought magic wouldn't be your thing, after your last foray with it. You went through a lot to get your skin back, if I recall correctly."

His eye narrows at that, though he doesn't rise to the bait.

"So," she continues in a light tone, "are you one of the thieves we're after? Or just a  _very_ lucky opportunist?"

"Commissioned, actually," he responds with a shrug. "The man called himself Uther."

Raven's eyes narrow to slits at that.

"Le Fey," she hisses, the sound feeling like acid on her tongue.

There were few mystics that she could say were as evil as the immortal faery, and the thought of her involvement in their investigation makes Raven's skin crawl.

"I assumed as much. Either an enemy or underling of her's, anyways. He was dead when I got back with the sword, at any rate. No client left to claim it, so I decided to keep it for myself."

"You just  _got_  Excalibur?"

"Surprised that it'd be that easy?"

For a brief moment, the women's eyes lock, and Raven responds with a derisive snort.

"Unfortunately, no," she sighs.

The air at Raven's side darkens, and in one quick movement she shoves the sword through.

" _Fill ar ais sa bhaile_ ," she hisses.

Her portal briefly flashes gold, and with the sound of a loud splash, it vanishes from around her wrist.

"Still, I admire the initiative. And now, no human hands are touching that thing again, as long as the Lady does her job."

"You can open portals all the way to Britain. Impressive," Deathstroke quips.

Jinx's brow rises at his nonchalance, her body instantly tightening in wary anticipation.

"You don't seem too…  _anything_ , considering you just lost one of the most powerful weapons in existence."

"Easy come, easy go. I don't need weapons to make me strong, Jinx. Unlike the pathetic cowards you're hunting, I can fight just fine on my own. It was more of a personal challenge. I wanted to know if I  _could_  use it. And I did, causing quite a lot of chaos while it lasted."

The last statement sets off alarm bells in Raven's mind, and she immediately calls on her soul-self to crush him into the ground.

Even with the return of her strength from the sword, her fight with Jared leaves her just drained enough to be a scant second too slow.

By the time the darkness reaches for him, his fist lashes out and crashes into the center of her face.

"None of that, now."

While the strike is nowhere near strong enough to do any real damage, it effectively puts the demonling off balance, causing her attack to evaporate.

Seeing their leader make his move, Match and Batgirl rise from the ground and move to attack the Titans, who themselves push their way shakily to their feet to meet them.

The expected follow-through punch never comes, and when Raven gets her feet back under her, she finds his eye glaring at the East members.

"You two are done here," he declares, his voice ringing through the suddenly silent air.

While Batgirl relaxes and begins heading off with only a shrug in response, Match glares at his boss.

"I want to crush-"

"You served your purpose. I wanted to get Raven's attention, and now I have it. Simple enough?"

Match stares back for several moments before muttering something and kicking off the ground, soaring high into the distance.

"You attacked them to get my attention," Raven reiterated, dropping into a fighting stance. "For what reason?"

Deathstroke remains utterly relaxed, standing before her without so much as hinting at tensed muscles.

"Because the chaos would draw your…  _friend_ … and you'd be with her. I had not counted on you being  _chased_  when you showed up, but no matter. Now then, I'm going to tell you what I know about these thefts. Who I know is involved, what their goal likely is, where some of the items you seek are."

Raven's eyes narrow even further, seeming to become red slits.

"And I should trust you?"

"Of course not, if you're smart. All the same, you will," he declares. "I'm going to give you what you seek on a silver platter. In exchange, you, your friend, and the various organizations you don't officially have any connection with are going to finish this hunt and take down the ones running things in my stead."

He reaches for his belt, and Raven only marginally relaxes when he extends a thick, leather-bound notebook to her.

She tentatively grabs it, casing it in soul-self while she slips it into her own belt.

"What is it?"

"All the data I and my various associates have collected. And with this, we're done here."

He turns and starts walking, but finds Raven in front of him before his second step.

"You're  _never_  selfless,  _Colonel_.  _ **Why**_?" she demands, her voice a full octave lower than normal.

Hearing it, she winces, and in an instant, the red fades in her eyes and she stands somewhat taller.

"Temper, temper. That's dangerous for you, I understand. And that's  _exactly_  why I'm doing this. I'm through with demons. That includes you, and everyone that man earlier is associated with. The quicker you put a stop to their idiotic plans to rip open the Hellmouth, the faster I can start feeling like shadows are just shadows again. That you'll be taking some of my competitors down will certainly be a bonus, though."

Raven's entire body is rigid, most of his statement lost after her mind locked on 'Hellmouth' in any way connected to her siblings.

Noticing that only a small segment of the psychic's attention is on him, Deathstroke shrugs and steps around her.

"We, by which I mean myself and the others of Titans East, will be going to ground, now that I got your attention. You let things germinate for far too long, and it's about time you put an end to this game."

She remains utterly frozen, her heart ramming against her chest similarly to a jackhammer.

"It… That is  _not_  possible," she finally murmurs, turning to face his back.

"Oh, it's possible. And with what's in that book, you'll definitely be regretting wasting time pondering on the how's and why's instead of getting to work. Now, if you'll excuse me."

With that, he coils like a spring and leaps to his left, hooking his hand onto the drainage pipe running down a nearby building.

With a set of leaps that even impresses Jinx, he quickly ascends a building and disappears.

"As soon as everything's done, I  _will_ be coming back, so don't get too comfy, kiddos," his voice echoes, the sound the only one in the suddenly stagnant air around Raven's still form…  
 *************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Heliotrope, known as Bloodstone, is a mineral compound that that has red-iron deposits in what's usually a bright green stone, which is believed in certain mystical traditions and systems to have healing and protective properties.

Toradh- Gaelic: "yield"

anois- Gaelic: "now"

Fill ar ais bhaile- Gaelic (roughly): "Return home"

Hellmouth, as can likely be discerned from the name, is a representation in art of the entrance to Hell. In the instance of this story, I'm more loosely using it as a portal to that realm, both because it sounds more epic and because as far as I can tell, there isn't a name in the DCU for the portal to Hell.

It was a bit long this time around. More action soon, I assure you! I hope you're all enjoying thus far, and will continue to do so, at least as much as I am inventing this. See you all next time!


	35. Windfall

# XXXIV. Windfall

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven snaps out of her stupor when Deathstroke's presence completely vanishes from her senses.

Muttering a curse, she pulls the book free from her belt, encased in a shell of black light.

Without comment, she walks towards the Titans, who stand gathered now in wary anticipation.

"What is it?" Nightwing rasps.

"It could be a trap, or it could be the end to the investigation into the heists," Raven sighs, glaring harshly at the small book.

"From the guy who showed up and started having us attacked…  _right_ , yeah, we can totally trust that," Kid Flash snarks.

Nightwing meets Raven's eyes, curiosity apparent even through his mask.

" _Do_ you trust it?"

Raven stares at the book, appearing to the others to be attempting to gleam something from beyond its covers.

"I do not trust Deathstroke. That said, I don't doubt what he said before handing this over, either."

"Which was  _what_ , exactly? I couldn't hear you, over there," Troia grouses.

Knowing that the Amazon's bloodlust in regards to Match had been very barely the work of her brother, Raven decides it best not to goad her.

"Yeah, about that. You let Sla…  _Deathstroke_  get away. Any reason  _why_?" Nightwing demands.

"Because I have more important things to do than bring a megalomaniacal mercenary in so he can escape prison and hurt officers in a few hours at most," Raven retorts.

"He's  _dangerous_!"

Jinx snorts at that as she walks up to Raven's side with her almost forgotten duffle bag toted on her shoulder.

"He said he was going into hiding. Pick your battles, dude."

"Trust me, he  _really_  doesn't matter," Raven adds. "What matters is what might be in this book. He stated that he wants me to take care of things so he doesn't have to have another…  _episode_ … involving demons, especially ones related to me, I imagine. I don't trust him, but I trust in his desire for what my brothers may be doing to have an end put to it."

They don't respond to that, the tone of fear just barely peeking through in her mention of what her brothers are doing making them too hesitant.

Zatanna joins them then, glaring at Raven to let her know that spurning her apology will come back to haunt her.

Ignoring the sorceress, Raven's eyes release a pulse of light, and the book flips open within the soul-self.

For a moment, Raven freezes, waiting for the book to explode or possibly release a toxic dust much like what Nightwing had inhaled in his youth.

"Well, it's not rigged. That's a good start, I guess," Kid Flash muses, breaking the silence.

"He wouldn't need to rig it to set a trap up," Nightwing mutters.

"He's too pragmatic to do something that stupid right now. Dude, he beat your ass when you were younger. Get over it," Jinx snaps, causing the hero's eyes to widen.

"Uh, not to start an argument, but he  _did_  show up with a magic sword and two psychopaths to come and attack us, and they were  _definitely_  not pulling any punches. He doesn't seem all that  _together_ ," Kid Flash responds.

"Oh, he's definitely nuts, but he ain't some kinda' monster or somethin'," Jinx retorts with a slight glare at the speedster.

"Not a monster!? He's come back from the dead  _twice,_ put Jump and my team in danger more times than I can count, and he worked with Tri-!"

Nightwing immediately cuts himself off when Raven's eyes snap up from the book, her eyes glowing slightly red in the dark.

"Do you actually know anything about him?" she poses, her voice like ice in the night's still air.

"After what he did to us, to  _you_ , are you actually going to defend him?" Nightwing asks, his voice just as cold.

"No. He's not anything resembling a decent person, and he's chiefly the one who caused my father to be able to come through. But you give him far too much credit due to how clouded you are, always  _have been_ , in regards to him. He isn't some monster lurking in the shadows, and I would have thought you'd be more jaded to your opinion of the man after this many years. He's a mercenary. A megalomaniacal, psychotic mercenary, who doesn't have qualms with enacting heinous amounts of violence to get his job done, but a mercenary all the same. He's  _hardly_  on par with anything that I could name  _monster_."

"If I was seeing right, he was using Excalibur on humans. That would make him a monster in my book," Zatanna argues.

Raven's brow rises at that.

"Take it from someone who held that damned sword. If he had been a monster, if he'd wanted you all dead, you would  _be_  dead, before Jinx and I ever got here."

That gives them pause, and Raven capitalizes on it.

"As for his motivations, Zatanna of all people can attest to how ineffective lying to me is. So while I would believe that he's too afraid of demons after what my father put him through to take care of this matter himself, and that he'd instead easily put the burden on others, I also didn't detect any dishonesty when he spoke. So I  _am_  going to trust that he wants this all finished without himself being involved."

"Sounds good to me. Let's crack 'er wide open, then," Jinx muses while cracking her knuckles for effect. "Any speed-readers here, 'sides Rae?"

The next second, Kid Flash is standing between the women, a hand raised and a grin on his lips.

"C'mon, really? Speed's my thing," he muses.

Jinx snorts in response while the book floats in the air between the speedster and Raven.

"Unnecessary. You can have the book once I'm done," the demonling deadpans.

Before he can retort, Raven's eyes turn black, and the book's pages start quickly flipping over.

Despite her statement, Kid Flash's eyes move rapidly across the pages.

Jinx watches the display and gets the distinct impression that he's trying to compete in some way with her lover.

She finds Raven's reactions far more interesting, however, and she ponders telling the speedster not to bother.

Her lover's expression morphs quickly between intrigue, surprise, and horror before the last page is flipped.

The book soars through the air, landing in Nightwing's hand when he catches it reflexively.

"Give that to the Justice League. Tell them that there's a need for urgency in any searches they can create. Jinx, we're going.  _Now_ ," she says, her urgency surprising the meta and causing a ball of tension to form in her chest.

"Don't you need a copy of that?" Troia asks.

"She has photographic memory and telepathy to share it with our team. Neat trick. Tell Cy when he gets back that we really need to catch up one of these times," Jinx responds while not breaking stride with Raven's quick pace.

"Cyborg knows how to reach me if you need us. Try not to need us," Raven adds before a nearby wall is enveloped in a spiral of darkness.

Her eyes flash black, and a dark, golden hue appears within the portal.

The women's pace doesn't slow until they're on the other side of the closed portal.

Jinx takes notice of the lush forest they seem to be in, and the air smells unlike anything she's experienced before.

With each of their strides, she finds a strange sort of energy filling her, as though the air around them itself is magic.

"Hey, Rae, care to share? Not that I mind some good cardio, y'know, but it'd be nice to know why we're in full-on panic mode right now, so I can join you there," Jinx muses.

"So  _stupid_! Why did I just throw it through?" Raven mutters to herself, turning Jinx's blood cold.

"Uh, Raven?"

Raven's pace slows somewhat, and she takes a deep, calming breath to try to stay the adrenaline pumping through her.

"He's not a monster, but Deathstroke is  _certainly_ an ass," Raven growls. "That book of his paints a picture that suggests Le Fey is very active. He should've mentioned it before just letting me passively throw Excalibur back unprotected! No," she adds in disagreement with herself, "I should've picked up on him mentioning who likely was behind the sword's procurement to begin with and thought better of it."

Jinx pieces her lover's frantic argument with herself together, her eyes widening.

"Morgaine Le Fey is going to be going after the Lady of the Lake, isn't she?"

For a moment, the meta ponders how ridiculous the statement would have sounded to her in her youth, before meeting Raven and being introduced to many things she'd thought nothing more than mythology.

The idea of the evil sorceress, who Jinx only knows of from reputation, getting her hands on Excalibur makes her more than understand her lover's worry.

"So where are we?" she asks, still with no idea why the area feels so strange around her.

"Where Excalibur went. Honestly, I don't know Europe well enough to even guess where we are, but from what I know of Arthurian lore, we're certainly in the Celtic and British portion of the continent."

"Seriously, when this is all over, I'm going to need to take a vacation riding Air Raven. Is there anywhere on Earth you  _can't_  teleport into?"

Raven frowns in thought, seeming honestly unsure of the answer.

"Probably, but I haven't run across it yet," she finally answers.

A grin slips across her lips, and she slows until she's walking at Jinx's side.

"Though, as for the vacation, I think it's a lovely idea."

A slight blush creeping into Jinx's face, she turns her gaze to her lover.

Raven, though, doesn't tease her about the accidental innuendo, her expression hardening in the next second.

When Jinx's senses take in the sudden change in the air, she tenses in preparation for a fight as well.

They make their way out of the thinning trees, and find themselves on the shore of the biggest lake that Jinx has ever seen.

In the far distance, past the unseasonably thick mist rising from the water's surface, she can make out what appears to be an island.

Raven's hair begins moving around her as though alive, and her eyes narrow in concentration.

" _Sióg Morrigain, bí imithe ó mo feic_!" she yells, the words sounding like a snake's hiss to Jinx's ears.

As soon as the magic is enacted, Raven wheezes and her posture becomes hunched.

Jinx notices the circles under her lover's eyes turning nearly obsidian, and the demonling's aura dims before her eyes.

Even with her obvious exhaustion, Raven keeps her focus on the shifting mirage before them, causing Jinx to look as well.

As the meta watches, the mist vanishes, and with it, the island goes as well.

The lake seems to shrink considerably, insofar as Jinx can now see the forest and meadow on the other side, but it remains incredibly large to her perspective.

Without the thick mist, though, something else is revealed to the women.

A large barrier floats along the water's surface, the bottom curve just barely slipping beneath the ripples.

The bottom of the bubble is colored dark red, and Jinx gasps at the realization that a woman is floating inside the barrier.

The woman is dressed in a long dress painted in ribbons of rich browns and golds overtop a fabric the same color as the water below.

Her blood is running from an obvious wound from her left shoulder down to her stomach, a strange glow emanating from within the tear's edges.

"Azarath-"

Raven's eyes widen when Jinx's hand clamps over her mouth, the meta fixing a glare on her.

"Fuck no. You've been running on empty already,  _before_  you jumped us across the planet and cast away something that I'm guessing was  _really_  old school and hard to get rid of. You impressed me enough already. You're doing too much work. No more spells until you can recharge so you don't give yourself an aneurism," she declares.

Raven meets her glare for a brief moment before noticing the concern in her feline, pink gaze.

With a sigh into the meta's hand, she nods her understanding.

Satisfied, Jinx releases her hold and raises her own hand toward the barrier.

" _Rihā karanā_!"

Her eyes flash bright pink, and a bolt of neon light arcs from her open palm into the barrier.

At first, the barrier remains unchanged, but as the bolt continues ripping into the solid magic, it gives a large ripple and vanishes into a wave of steam.

A  _splash_  sounds a second later, and Jinx moves a step closer to the water's edge.

"Hey, don't just disappear on us. What the hell-"

Before she can fully form her question, the water explodes, and the same woman rises until her chest is above the water at the meta's feet.

"While I thank you for releasing me, there's no need for being rude. I've had enough foulness from my sister's visit to last me several centuries, thank you very much," the woman states in a smooth English accent.

"Look, lady-"

"I have a name," the woman interrupts with a glare.

"You've been bested on a very poor day for my patience, Nimue," Raven responds, surprising both women. "I sent you the sword back. Isn't it your job to safeguard it?"

"So  _you're_  the one who dropped it into Avalon. And a demon, at that. Interesting," Nimue retorts with a scrutinizing stare at the psychic.

"I just sent it home. Which is your domain. Why does she even want it? She's not had any interests in the sword before, as far as I know."

"She wishes to open something with it, as far as I know. And my  _dear_  sister arrived shortly after it dropped in, for a visit. Of course, I managed to hurt her some, too, thanks to Caliburn,  _Excalibur_ as you've come to call it, and was almost pushing her out of my domain. Then the  _soith_  managed to get me out of the water. Turned the whole thing to ice, for as long as it took to get the sword from me and trap me in that bubble with a very  _painful_ cut to show for the trouble. And then she was gone, leaving me to hopefully die."

"Uh, aren't you immortal?" Jinx asks.

"Of course," Nimue responds with a glare at the meta. "She wanted me to wish myself to die from the pain. That sword can create a great deal of vileness in the hands of ones aligned with Darkness and Chaos."

The way she says the two words gives Jinx the impression that she's referring to something much larger than concepts, and for a brief moment, she wonders on the way the sword's spirit had addressed her.

"How long ago did she leave, and in which direction?" Raven demands, breaking the meta from her reverie.

Nimue's biting retort is cut off when she notices the unsteady stance the demonling is in, her legs slightly shaking and her eyes seeming slightly glazed over.

Her eyes close for a moment, and when they open again, Nimue points behind her.

"She's going that direction. Taking her sweet time, too. I don't know where she's going, though; too many possibilities in Europe."

Raven nods her thanks and wraps an arm around Jinx's waist.

Before her girlfriend can protest, they sink into the ground.

As soon as they rise again, in the middle of an empty street, Raven falls to the ground with her eyes half-lidded.

Releasing an animalistic growl, Jinx lifts her up by her waist, hefting Raven's surprisingly light build with ease.

"God _damnit_ , Raven. When you wake up, we're  _so_ talking about why being an overachiever's not a good thing," she grunts.

Looking around, she spots a car parked on the side of the road and her eyes narrow.

" _Recludam_."

The car's locks  _click_  out of place, and she drags her nearly unconscious lover over.

"No… time… to wassste," Raven slurs, seeming almost drunk.

"Yeah, yeah. Seriously, you're gonna' give me a damn heart attack one of these days, you keep this shit up."

"Sorry," Raven mutters, her body immediately relaxing once Jinx puts her on the passenger seat.

She seems to reflexively wrap around Jinx's bag when she puts it in the nearly slumbering psychic's lap, a small smile curling her lips.

Making a quick note of the car's license plate, Jinx does some mental math on how much replacing the vehicle when it inevitably is destroyed in their hands will cost.

With a curse, she moves into the diver's side and her eyes again flash pink when her hands touch the underside of the dashboard.

" _Jīvita_!" she hisses.

The dashboard glows neon pink before the light quickly fades.

Nothing happens after the spell is cast, and Jinx swears a small storm as she realizes how much every second really does count.

" _Mērē sātha kāma,_ you damned machine.  _Jīvita_!"

Another pulse of light moves through the car, and the engine roars to life in the next instant.

With her eyes struggling to remain open, Raven smiles at her lover.

"Improving," she murmurs sleepily.

"Damn straight! So you're going to go into your weird, zen trance that fixes your body, and I'm going to drive, and when you wake up, we'll have Excalibur and a nice _, long_  talk about why for your own continued living, you need to start depending a bit more on me."

"Need a guide," Raven disagrees, though her eyes can no longer resist closing.

"Yeah? Who the hell's going to- Oh, don't you dare-"

Raven's eyes slip closed, and a pulse of black leaves her to spread through the aether.

While she starts pulling the car out, Jinx preoccupies her terrified mind by cursing in as many languages as she can think of at her stubborn lover.

Then, Raven gives a contented hum and her head rolls to the side, coming to rest on Jinx's shoulder, her unconscious body instinctively putting her in as much contact with the meta as it can while strapped in.

When the demonling's body goes still to the point of even her breathing being occasional, Jinx gives a huff and begins driving after the evil witch, much relaxed now that she no longer needs to contemplate knocking her lover out herself…  
 **********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

sióg- Gaelic: "fairy"

Morrigain- Gaelic: old pronunciation of Morrigan, later Morgen, later Morgan/Morgana/Morgaine

bí- Gaeltic: "be"

imithe- Gaelic: "gone"

ó- Gaelic: "from"

mo- Gaelic: "my"

feic- Gaelic: "sight"

I was really loose here. The spell was basically "Begone, Fata Morgana, from my sight", but Fata Morgana (a type of mirage) is Italian and translating Italian to English to Gaelic left me with a pretty rough way of saying it.

Rihā kiranā- Hindi: "release/liberalize/set free, etc."

Caliburn is likely the old Welsh name that later became known as Excalibur.

Soith- Gaelic: "bitch"

Recludam- Latin: "unlock"

jīvita- Hindi: "alive"

Mērē sātha kāma- Hindi: "work with me"

Also, some fun lore facts. "Nimue" is one of the names given over the centuries to the Lady of the Lake of Arthurian lore, and as opposed to her title, she's actually the ruler of the entire island/realm of Avalon, in many tellings. For reference on where I was describing, look up The Loe Pool in Cornwall. There're a few different possible locations that her lake was based on, but that one made for the most dramatic I found. Also, her dress is inspired by the "The Beguiling of Merlin" painting by Edward Burne-Jones.

A lot of lore and notes this time around! As always, I hope you're all greatly enjoying yourselves. It would seem that there're still some issues to work out for the couple, but for now, get ready for some action. See you all next time!


	36. Chase

# XXXV. Chase

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx tears down the roads in the old car, her heart slowly returning to its normal rhythm with every moment that Raven remains in her healing trance.

When she's sure her lover isn't going to suddenly wake up and use even more magic, she releases a large sigh and her entire body relaxes.

With a sigh, she sends a call out from the small phone on her belt.

When she slips a small earbud into her ear, she winces at the harsh ringing sound.

Luckily, it lasts only three repetitions before the line clicks over.

"Whaddya' want,  _Lucky_? I'm busy," Gizmo's voice growls in greeting.

"You don't know what busy  _is_ , Mike," she responds with a frown. "Listen, I need you to do me a solid. Birdbrain is probably giving a book to the JL right about now. I want you to copy the info they'll be sending out and forward it to Steel for me."

"The hell? What're you doing in stinkin'  _Cornwall_?" he asks, seeming to only then pay any attention to his partner.

"Is that where we are?" she asks, once again amazed at her lover's ability to teleport.

"We as in the royal we, or we as in you're currently talking to me naked? 'Cause I'm hangin' up right now if this is another one of those  _Rae thought it'd be funny_ -"

"Shut up, Giz," Jinx growls with a blush. "Listen, just patch that book's info through to Steel."

"What the hell's goin' on?"

"Hell if I know," Jinx grumbles. "Right now, I'm chasin' after a hag of a witch alive  _way_  past her damn expiration date, Raven's  _unconscious_ , and I have no idea where the hell I'm heading or what I'll find when I get there."

"You two have the  _kinkiest_  dates," Gizmo responds before bursting into laughter.

"I swear I'm going to break a mirror over your damn head if we get back," Jinx growls.

The laughter stops then, and Jinx can  _feel_  the change through the phone.

" _If_?"

"Yeah,  _if_. Rae's out of commission and I'm driving after Morgaine Le goddamn Fey. Who has the  _Excalibur_ , might I add. Who the hell knows  _how_ this is gonna' end?" Jinx grumbles.

"Wait. Wanna' run that by me again? Slowly, and with some details missing, like how the  _hell_  that hag got the drop on Raven and how she has somethin' like that to begin with? Oh, and while you're at it, why'd I just get a damn alert that your house resembles an overcooked steak right now," he adds with worry creeping into his voice.

Jinx snorts at that, casting an irritated glare at her slumbering lover.

"Long story short, Raven's brother came knocking, and to beat his ass Raven had to use Excalibur, which I ain't even goin' to  _begin_  guessing on how Deathstroke got his hands on. She sent her brother packin' and dropped the sword back to its home so it didn't fry her ass. Wilson gave us that book I mentioned, Rae figured out that Le Fey was going to be going after it, and now here we are. Even better, the witch didn't do a thing to her, Rae burnt herself out after I tried to get her to stop using her magic like it was going out of style. So she's in her trance right now, and I'm driving in whatever direction I feel that damn sword's traces, hoping it doesn't suddenly drop from what I can pick up vaguely already, apparently across England. Keepin' up?"

"If this is what happens when you two take a day off, I might have to tell Steel to keep a backlog of busy work just in case. Holy shit, Jinx!"

"Yeah, I know."

"And you said that Raven used Excalibur? To beat her brother? Well, that'd explain the charbroiled apartment."

Raven makes a low murmuring noise and shifts, her arm slithering around Jinx's waist as if even in her unconsciousness she attempts to apologize to the hex-caster.

Warmth spreads through Jinx at the contact, an effect that even a full year after their dating has not diminished in the slightest.

The meta fights to hold on to her indignation despite the pleasure rolling through her.

"Y-Yeah, she did. It was a pretty tough one, but she managed to make him run in the end. The dude stood up to  _Excalibur_ , though. I've gotta' say, I'm  _really_  not lookin' forward to meeting any more of her family."

Gizmo whistles in response, the sounds of typing coming to life in the background.

"Yeah, that ain't good. You're going to have all  _sorts_ of stories from any family reunions. Well, you would if there was a sane one outta' the rest of them. Still, holy shit. Raven  _used_  the Excalibur? Does she  _ever_  stop impressing?"

Jinx's irritation returns then.

"No, she doesn't. She followed that little impossible feat by teleporting us here. From  _New York_. Oh, and then she broke a spell that I'm guessin' Le Fey cast to cover an entire lake in an illusion. I swear if I didn't love her, I'd kill her when she keeps pullin' shit like this."

"Ain't like she had a choice," he replies in a way that Jinx can almost  _see_  him shrugging through the phone. "Don't get me wrong, she's hella' powerful, but you haven't exactly been good for her self-restraint since she ditched Grayson. I don't get how she lives through a  _tenth_ of the shit she pulls, same as you."

"Hey! I'm not  _that_  wild," the meta protests.

As it leaves her mouth, though, Jinx considers it.

She had  _always_  been pretty free with her power, and that hadn't ever changed even as she got older.

Even when she was working for Waller's  _project_ , she had never exactly reined her power in when she was blasting people full of concentrated bad luck.

"Okay, ya' might be onta' somethin'," she sighs.

"No kiddin'. So, uh, how long does she usually take with that trance?"

"No idea. Much as she goes full-bore, I've only seen the shit twice. One time it took her almost half a day, the other it took her four hours."

"Well, that blows. Which was the faster one?"

"When we ended up dealing with Circe," Jinx says with a strange tone creeping into her voice as memories surface.

"Well, that should mean that she'll take less time. No way in hell that she ended up worse than when she was dealin' with a stinkin'  _goddess_."

"She  _is_  less bloody," Jinx responds with a nod to herself.

"Great. Then maybe she'll be able to watch the tail-end of you kicking Le Fey's ass back to whatever realm she comes from," he quips enthusiastically.

"Yeah, I'd love to impress her for a cha- holy shit!" she suddenly screeches.

Gizmo's shouting response goes ignored as Jinx stares at the fire suddenly lit in the back of her temporary car.

Incredible heat rushes through the interior, and the crackling of the flames becomes more grating with Gizmo's screeching.

"I gotta' take care of somethin'. Call you back later, Giz. Get that book thing taken care of for me."

Without giving him any opportunities to disagree, she ends the call and turns her attention to the fire, pulling the car to a screeching halt on the shoulder of the road.

" _Exstinguo_!" she shouts, pointing a hand at the fire.

The fire gives no reaction, and with a start, Jinx realizes that a distinctive darkness is filling the inside of the flames.

"It'll take a  _lot_  more 'n that to put out Hellfire,  _chaus_ ," a gruff voice rumbles from within the darkness.

Glaring at the growing shadow inside the pyre, Jinx releases a sigh.

"Then stop burning the car," she growls back.

A throaty chuckle sounds, and the Hellfire vanishes the next second.

Not so much as a trace of the fire remains, even the heat vanishing.

In its place, Etrigan sits in the back seat of the car, more than matching the meta's glare.

"Cheeky,  _chaus_. Why the hell've you distracted my hunt for the harpy this foul morn'?" the demon hisses.

With a start, Jinx realizes what her lover's last trick had been for.

Giving a derisive snort, she pulls back onto the road and begins speeding once again.

"I'm driving after  _the harpy_  right now," she responds with a mockery of his growly dialect. "Raven crashed, but she sent out a call. Apparently, it was for you. So now, you're going to help me track Le Fey, and when we find her, I'll personally hold her down while you kill 'er, for all I give a damn."

"Why're  _you_  chasing the harpy?" he asks with a chuckle. "She's a bit out of your league, with Raven taken out of commission."

"Yeah, go fu- never mind," she interrupts herself, reining her temper in. "Le Fey's got Excalibur. I don't know what she's going to  _do_  with Excalibur, but I know it isn't good. So I'm going to stop whatever it is. I might not be on Raven's level, but I'm  _damn_  sure close enough to count."

Etrigan's eyes widen in surprise at that, before a smirk curves his lips.

"Now that I know she's near, there's no reason for me to help you."

"My girlfriend used the last bit of energy keeping her ass conscious to call you up here to help us, and you're going to respect that, Blood, or I'll use what Raven's been teaching me to give you one of the worst headaches you've ever experienced in your entire damn life," she snarls at him.

The demon simply laughs at that, his smirk turning into a full grin.

"My kin's rubbin' off on you,  _chaus_. I like that you think it wise to command me to your petty whims in such a small space, too. You don't seem very smart, though," he laughs.

The meta glares into the mirror to meet his eyes, her own turning into pink lenses, her usual humor gone by this point.

"I sleep with a Demon Lord's daughter, who has some  _serious_ possessive tendencies and a  _lot_  of female coworkers. Frankly, you don't scare me, Etrigan," she retorts flippantly. "I can only vaguely tell where Excalibur is. So you can fry me, or you can track Le Fey. One will bag you  _the harpy_ and the other will get you a vengeful and  _royally_  pissed Demon Lord."

For a brief moment, Jinx's heart seems to stop working, the demon's expression conveying that he's actually weighing the options.

Finally, he grins and points ahead.

"She's in a straight line from ya',  _chaus_. How'd the harpy get 'er talons on Arthur's sword, anyway?"

Jinx winces at that, putting more focus on not crashing into other cars as she speeds through busier parts of England.

"Bad timing on our parts. She tortured it from the Lady of the Lake, and we didn't get here fast enough to stop her."

"I see why. Driving is an abysmally slow way of gettin' 'round. You won't catch up with her easily, at this rate."

"Hey, we got here  _fast_. Raven got us here from New York. We'd be on Le Fey's ass if she didn't have to deal with something before we got here," Jinx growls.

"But you're drivin'  _now_. You might've caught her if ya' just went after her faster already."

"Rae's the one that can fly. And the last time I tried teleporting, I ended up ten whole miles off of target and ending up between a big-ass sea monster and an Atlantean army. I sure as  _hell_ ain't trying again with her in tow right now. Any time that I can get her to recharge, the better."

"You two are amusin'," Etrigan laughs. "Fine, I'll help ya'. If she's already done what she's doin' by the the time we get there, that'll be on  _your_  head, though,  _chaus_."

"Fair enough. And I might've thought of somethin' to make it a little less slow."

Her eyes' glow fills the entire car, and she again puts one of her hands against the dashboard.

" _Hōnā_   _tivra aura achūta_   _nīcē mērē cāha_!"

The entire car briefly ignites in pink light, small sparks leaving the vehicle's exterior.

The change seems to go entirely unnoticed by the other motorists around them, and when the light dissipates, the vehicle seems to move much faster.

"Interestin' spell,  _chaus_."

"Making it up as I go," Jinx sighs. "I'm just glad it worked."

Before the demon can ask what  _it_  is, Jinx presses the car to the limits of its speed, and like mist they pass harmlessly through the traffic before them.

"This can't last very long," he quips with a grin.

"Long enough. Just keep pointing where I need to go, and I'll be going in a straight line there."

She refuses to let show the amount of energy the spell takes from her, nor does she admit her surprise that the spell had worked at all.

Instead, she focuses on following the temperamental demon's directions and maintaining the spell to follow after Morgaine Le Fey.

Even with the vast difference in speed under her magic's influence, the drive feels like it takes considerably longer than the meta's comfortable with.

With every moment that passes after the agreement, Jinx  _feels_  the time running out.

When they finally pull to a stop, the spell dissipates in a cloud of smoke.

With a curse, Jinx's hand turns pink and Raven's seatbelt frays until snapping under her touch.

A loud  _hiss_ ing sound fills the car's interior, and at the same time that Etrigan kicks one of the back doors free from its hinges and leaps out, Jinx wraps her arms around Raven's waist and dives after him.

The jingling of the metal within her bag, still clutched in Raven's hands, clashes harshly with the sound of the car exploding from the strain put on it.

As soon as she has her lover's unconscious form away from the flaming pile of metal, she turns her attention to the world around them.

With a start, she realizes their journey has ended in Stonehenge.

And standing in the center of the large stone structure, she finds Morgaine Le Fey staring at them from behind her golden mask…  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

A quick note here; I'm starting my next semester this coming week, including classes for my second degree on top of the final classes for my first, so I'm going to be really busy. I'm trying to build a backlog up as much as I can, and I'll probably need to write to decompress from the amount of work I'm going to have, but I will say that the schedule may not be as regular as it has been since I started writing this story if I can't get a dozen or so chapters written out before next Monday. If that doesn't happen, apologies in advance.

Also, I have plans to write about that story with Circe. Maybe the story of Jinx's misadventure in teleporting, too, along with the missing sex scenes, and quite a few other stories. But first, I'll be finishing the main story, so as not to distract myself with those before I'm done.

For the record, I had to rely on a map application for a reference for the time it would take to get from Cornwall, where The Loe Pool (the location I used for Nimue's Lake) to Wiltshire, where Stonehenge is. From what I found, it'd take about 3 hours of a drive, magic taken out of the equation, but I decided to keep things simple because I didn't want this to be too much of a filler chapter. Just thought I'd give Jinx's personality some time to shine since recently I've been focusing a lot on Raven.

Exstinguo- Latin: "extinguish, put out, kill, etc."

Chaus- Latin: "chaos"; basically, Etrigan's using it as a derogative term for Jinx

When she calls Etrigan "Blood" she's referring to Jason Blood, the human that Etrigan's soul resides in.

Hōnā- Hindi: "Be"

Tivra- Hindi: "swift"

aura- Hindi: "and"

achūta- Hindi: "untouchable"

nīcē- Hindi: "under"

mērē- Hindi: "my"

cāha- Hindi: "will"

I hope you're all enjoying yourselves as much as I am! Positive or negative, I look forward to your thoughts. See you next time!


	37. Uncaged

# XXXVI. Uncaged

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

For a moment, Jinx feels the stare of the sorceress on her in the same way she'd felt knives on her skin before.

Something about the witch seems different to the meta, in a way entirely separate from Etrigan, who as she understands it is at least similar in age, or even from Doctor Fate and his helmet with a spirit older than she could comprehend.

Behind the large, ornate golden mask, she feels a stare locked onto her as it breaks her down to the barest elements of her soul and assesses everything along the way.

Then the attention shifts in dismissal, the immortal's amusement clear even across the large meadow, and irritation quickly blossoms.

Shaking her head, Morgaine raises the Excalibur and, with a flourish, drives it down into the ground.

Were she a betting woman, Jinx would wager the sword is in the exact center of the large stone circle.

In a rising chorus, her voice echoes through the area in a similar hissing lilt that Raven had so recently made sound almost poetic, but far harsher sounding from the immortal's tongue.

" _Géill mo béic anois, ná faoi mo beidh, mé dó thoghairm na cumhachtaí den seo ársa scoilte ar oscail sa doras ná cosán ar na Réimse na Sí_!"

At the end of the immortal's speech, Stonehenge is encased in a golden glow that burns the meta's eyes.

In Jinx's arm, Raven seems to stir as the stone slabs begin glowing dimly.

Her eyes open to slivers, and Jinx is startled to find the orbs revealed to be lenses of flickering red, black, and white, the colors seeming to battle with each other.

"Need… to stop…"

"What the hell's she doing?" Jinx demands to Etrigan, panic clear in her voice. "I've seen this trance last through a goddamn  _bomb_  going off over our heads."

Etrigan studies Morgaine with disdain, his teeth bared in a snarl.

"The harpy's tryin' to bring the Fae here."

"The Fae? As in… like… gossamer wings and wands and shit? 'Cause I gotta' say, the vibes I'm gettin'-"

"Not the race, you daft  _chaus_. The  _realm_ ," he interrupts with a growl. "Stonehenge's been used as a Faery Ring to commune with those accursed tricksters in the past, and I'm guessin' the hag figured out that that's because the damned thing sits on top of a portal right to 'em, if ya' can pull it open enough."

Jinx's eyes move down to her shivering lover, a harsh expression taking form.

"Yeah, that'd probably do it."

She grabs a hold of Raven's cheek, and leans her head until her forehead rests against Raven's disturbingly warm one.

"Raven, I'll take care of it. Sleep."

"She'll… kill," Raven murmurs, her eyes widening slightly more.

" _Ārāma_ ," Jinx growls, shaking her head when she realizes her slip into a different language. "Your creepy Latin thing's rubbin' off, Rae. Sleep. I'll take care of it."

Something in Jinx's words, whether her assurance or the accidental magic, seems to relax Raven, and her eyes slip closed once more.

As soon as they close, the psychic's entire body is enveloped in a thin shell of soul-self.

"Good. Is Excalibur necessary for her to pull the portal open, or to keep it open?" Jinx demands of Etrigan while turning back towards the sorceress.

Before he responds, she brings her palms together and pink light sparks to life between the closed hands.

"Never mind, either way she'll be screwed without the damned thing. This ain't happening when we've already got Hell to worry about.  _Dhvansa karanā_!"

The light flashes into a small nova of pink, and Jinx slams her fist into the ground.

Around where her flesh impacts with grass, the area's green color turns black, and a small tremor runs through the meadow.

From the stories she'd heard, she was nowhere near on the late hero Terra's level with her own control over the Earth, but her lover had made sure over the last year to bring her far closer.

What had started out as episodes of migraines from the strain had quickly become a part of the meta's nature in the same way that calling on her hex magic was, if far more straining by way of being external.

With a grunt of effort, Jinx slices the hand in an arc from where it landed, and immediately, a massive spray of rock and earthen debris rises.

Her spell moves through the shaking ground like an arrow in a straight path for Morgaine.

The sorceress rises and begins murmuring some spell of her own, and Jinx's eyes narrow in concentration.

Her fist clenches, and the line separates, becoming three erratically jerking trails in the grass and dirt.

While Morgaine's spell destroys the two heading for her own body, the third slips underground unnoticed.

Believing the power of the spell dissipated before reaching her, the witch's eyes widen behind her mask when suddenly Excalibur vibrates, and in a spout of rock and smoke, is sent soaring high into the air.

As soon as the weapon leaves the ground, Stonehenge loses its glow, and Jinx locks eyes on the falling blade.

She points a finger at Excalibur, and the digit glows vibrantly for the barest of moments.

When the glow disappears, a spike of her hex magic is flying through the air, far faster than Morgaine's levitating body.

With a jerk of her wrist, the bolt circles back and slams into the blade.

A violent spark of magic discharges before the sword is sent spiraling towards the meta, and more importantly away from the immortal.

"It'd be smart not to touch that accursed weapon,  _chaus_. It won't like you very much," Etrigan warns.

"Yeah, already figured that out. Better than letting her get it again," Jinx responds through grit teeth.

" _Gaoth,_ " Morgaine's voice rings out, grabbing the meta's attention, _"a thabhairt dom cad é mianach_!"

The wind suddenly rises to a harsh screech in the meadow, and the sword's spiraling movement jerks to a halt.

Excalibur begins slowly moving back through the air towards Morgaine's outstretched, open hand, the immortal's body wrapped in a halo of gold light.

Jinx takes aim at the sorceress and both of her hands turn entirely to pink sparks and light.

She releases the power then, unleashing an array of hexbolts onto the distracted witch.

The bolts seem more an annoyance than any real threat to the sorceress, and for a brief moment, Jinx hopes the sorceress mistakes her efforts as her ability, to give her any edge she can find.

Jinx presses the distraction, though, and while the witch is focused on blocking the magical pellets, she pulls on more power.

A large spike releases from her palms between the waves of stinging bolts, and with a flick of her wrist she knocks Excalibur free from the wind's hold and back towards her.

The meta is in the process of jumping to catch the falling blade when Morgaine's magic begins reaching for her.

Even without her lover's empathic abilities, Jinx can feel the sorceress's irritation despite the distance between the women.

"Who  _dares_  to interfere with my affairs alongside that atrocious  _thruaill_?" Morgaine asks in a smoky English accent.

Jinx ignores the question in favor of leaping after the magical sword.

Morgaine points at the ground, and just as Jinx's hands are wrapping around Excalibur's hilt, a spike of grass-covered rock lurches upward, aiming to impale her stomach.

With a curse, she swings her leg and curls into the momentum she's created.

Her stomach manages to curve around the path of the rock's tip, narrowly avoiding a gruesome death.

As soon as her feet touch the ground, the area begins to rumble.

It's all the warning she needs to move into a cartwheel backward, dodging each spike that rises to follow her.

Her mind empties of everything as she focuses on surviving, her adrenaline sending heavy pulses of magic through her veins.

Even the fact that the old sorceress gets her hands on Excalibur is irrelevant in the face of the certain death chasing her.

With each leap and flip, she moves closer to the sorceress with an increasingly bright glow to her eyes and sparks of green light flickering around her palms.

"You're quite skilled at running away," Morgaine quips, seeming to have let her anger turn to amusement while playing with the meta.

"I've got other tricks, too," Jinx responds flippantly.

With the next spike, she comes down on the flattened side and uses it as a springboard.

Morgaine takes a step back in surprise as Jinx leaps straight at her from the newest protrusion.

" _Pannāmāya Jahannuma_!"

Jinx lands in a crouch at the immortal's side, an open palm flying towards her.

In an instant, the air turns to a thick steam around the women and emerald-colored flames leap into existence.

Jinx pushes energy into her palms, fueling the torrent of magical fire against the unprepared immortal.

The sound of laughter behind the wall of magic doesn't reassure the meta's confidence, nor does the expanding golden glow of Excalibur shining through.

With a curse, she cuts the feed of her energy off and leaps backward, putting as much distance between them as possible.

The steam dies down while Jinx curses at the sweat breaking out along her neck.

"A decent display. However, I hope you're done doing your warming up process, as attacks such as that will not be enough to distract me from my intentions, much less hurt m- ugh!"

Her insult is interrupted by a new torrent of fire, this one flickering with deep obsidian within.

"How 'bout  _my_  fires,  _ **witch**_?" Etrigan snarls as the immortal is pressed back.

Watching the sorceress being pressed back by Etrigan, Jinx realizes that she won't be getting her hands on Excalibur again any time soon.

And that her pride's less important at the moment than stopping Morgaine from opening the portal.

With a muttered curse, she spins away from them and begins running towards Stonehenge's pillars while a new plan begins taking form.

"If you can't snatch the key, just break the damn lock," she mutters to herself, pushing more effort into her run.

When she reaches halfway between the circular structure and the fighting immortals, Morgaine seems to grasp what her plan is, the unsettling feeling of her attention alerting Jinx.

Jinx keeps running when Morgaine slashes Excalibur through the air, pushing Etrigan back several feet.

The hairs on the back of her neck rise as more Gaelic rolls through the air from the sorceress, and she immediately pulls to a stop when the ground begins cracking ahead of her.

As a massive figure begins bursting up from the ground, a horrific sound like dozens of dogs yelping and crying in unison fills the air.

The sound is nightmarish to Jinx's metahuman ears, and she forces herself to fight through the wave of pain that rises.

By the time she's again able to see straight, she finds herself staring at a monstrosity that even most of Raven's books wouldn't do justice.

The creature is at least three times her size in both height and width.

As it shakes dirt and rocks from the leopard-like torso making up most of its body, the ground trembles underneath.

It stands on four legs very much like a lion's and ending in a stag's hooves, though thick scales take the place of where Jinx expects to see more fur.

At its hind end, a massive tail swings back and forth along the ground, the spike at the end raising clouds of dust and dirt.

It finally seems satisfied with its task of cleaning itself, and a long neck turns when its attention shifts to Jinx.

The creature's head is that of a snake, though from the large size and spiked crown, the meta can't even begin guessing at what kind.

Its small, beady black eyes lock on Jinx, and its mouth splits open to release another horrific, canine chorus.

"Is this-"

"A Questing Beast," Morgaine supplies with a laugh. "Kill her, denizen of the ancients, and help me release magic back unto this hideous world," she adds in command to the monstrosity.

Jinx starts backpedaling at the same time the creature releases a screeching cry and stomps a small crater into the ground beneath it.

While the sounds of Etrigan fighting the no longer amused immortal rise, Jinx feels every instinct she has screaming to grab Raven and run from the nightmare given life.

And then it moves, and she realizes that the Beast is too fast to let that happen.

Its hulking form moves at her in a blur, and she finds it waiting for her by the time she turns to run.

"Oh you've  _got_ to be shitting me," she hisses, meeting the monster's glare with feigned courage.

The sound of dogs rises, and the ground begins violently jerking beneath her feet as it charges at her.

She begins a mockery of a dance with the creature then, diving or jumping out of the way of its every bite or swipe with its claws by an increasingly smaller margin.

In the midst of another attempt at clawing her face off, the Beast spins around and sends its tail careening for her retreating form.

Cursing, Jinx flips over the shovel-like blade at the end, only for the rest of the tail twitch upwards.

The thick, fatty skin grazes her stomach and sends her off-balance, and high into the air.

She sees its gaping maw snapping towards her, and with a defiant shout, throws a pink blast that sends her spiraling out of its path.

It manages to land a strike regardless, albeit a nonfatal one as its long fangs tear a gash across her left shoulder.

It finally manages to land a strike, its long fangs tearing a gash across her left shoulder.

Pain ripples through her, and she forces herself to move back from it despite the blackness coating her sight.

Her vision returns quickly, and she loses any attention she was paying to the immortals and their fight when the pain increases.

Putting every bit of energy into not being ripped to bare shreds by the Questing Beast, she begins blowing chunks of fur and skin from it, only for the creature to regenerate immediately.

The longer she fights for her life, the more she feels anger bubbling through her.

While quick to irritate, she always prided herself on being even harder to make legitimately angry than even her lover during the early days of their relationship, when she actively fought against it.

With the beast's vested interest in trying to kill her, on top of the other stresses of the previous several hours, though, she finds herself quickly deteriorating into that unusual state.

And despite knowing it's going to make her sloppy, the Beast keeps too much of her attention for her to stop it.

While avoiding the creature and lashing out with her hex magic, she suddenly realizes how close they are to Raven's unconscious body.

As does the monster.

Its fierce assault abruptly ends as it turns towards the far easier target, and it begins charging at Raven.

Something shifts in Jinx's mind, and she feels a strange sensation flowing through her body as she watches the creature rushing towards her relatively defenseless girlfriend.

"That  _isn't_  happening," she snarls.

She brings her hands together, and a bolt of pink lightning launches into the Beast's side, sending it flipping end-over-end in a cloud of smoke.

It quickly rises back to its hooves, shaking its head dazedly as its eyes lock on her.

A screech fills the air as it charges at her once more, with Raven in its direct path.

Moving on instinct, Jinx slams her fist into the ground and releases several pulses of magic into the soil.

The earth rises in front of the running beast, and a net of solid bedrock quickly traps it.

It bites and claws at its restraints as Jinx pulls on the earth, dragging the creature back to her and leaving a massive fissure in its wake.

Her eyes glowing pure white, Jinx takes a running start and leaps, landing squarely on the Questing Beast's serpentine neck.

"I've had about  _enough_  getting looked down on today. You came up from the Earth, right? I'm putting you right the hell back," she snarls in a voice she barely recognizes.

Pink bolts of energy start arcing off of her body, casting a neon glow over the entire meadow as she pulls magic to the fore.

" _Sêka mērh the Pr̥thvī_!"

Her voice echoes through the air, seeming to gain a strange quality the longer it lasts.

The glow leaves the field, and instead wraps around the beast's body, coating the entire creature in Jinx's magic.

As though she stands on a melting ice cube, the Beast slowly dissolves under her.

In a matter of seconds, the ancient creature, as well as the earthen net trapping it, seem to have vanished entirely.

More magic flows from Jinx, and a halo of green fire explodes out from the meta's hands into where the creature had stood.

An explosion sets off when it hits, and when Jinx's vision clears from the blinding white light, she finds herself holding a small, pink gemstone.

With the creature's death, whatever had changed in her reverts, and she finds herself resisting falling to her knees in a puddle of exhaustion.

The gemstone shines in her grip, and clarity returns to her mind.

She only then notices the blood coating her arm, and the realization that her sudden change had been caused by the Questing Beast, and that she likely should be dead, is both terrifying and incredibly interesting to the meta.

Shaking her head, she quickly moves to Raven's side and reaches past the wall of soul-self covering her.

The energy accepts her presence, and with a smile, she drops the magical gem into her lover's slackened hand.

It seems to resonate with Raven's chakra gem, and Jinx again ponders what exactly she did.

Morgaine and Etrigan, however, have no such problem, and as Jinx kisses her slumbering lover and begins heading once more for the stone pillars, anger pulses through the sorceress.

"Had I suspected that wretched child wields that form of magic, I would never have put such a magnificent creature through that," Morgaine mutters.

"She's a cheeky  _chaus_ ," Etrigan laughs. "Ya' picked poorly, witch, and now you'll need to sleep in the bed you've made."

His hands come together, and a stream of Hellfire releases into the sorceress.

Glaring from behind her mask, Morgaine erects a wall of magic and redirects the flames, sending him dodging further and further away.

Using her free hand, she buries Excalibur into the ground, and golden light leaves her eyes.

"I will not let a lowly  _thrauill_  stop me any more than I will an eternal fool, Jason Blood. I would think you'd know me better than that."

As Etrigan looks for a way around the onslaught, Morgaine carves a complex sigil into the dirt with the magic sword, which begins glowing red once completed.

"Many creatures of old live on these isles yet. I have everything I need at my disposal to keep her at bay until I've finished you and done what I set out to do."

Light filters out through her mask as her eyes glow, and the ground cracks around her.

" _Éist le mo ghlaoch agus teacht a scriosann mo naimhde, Cú Sidhe_!"

For a horrifying moment, Jinx thinks the sorceress has raised another Questing Beast.

She quickly realizes the sound of baying dogs is different this time as it reaches her ears, however, and turns her gaze to find five creatures, roughly the size of a young bull each, lurching at her from the shadows of Stonehenge's pillars.

While Etrigan uses the moment to circle around Morgaine and throw a spell that turns the grass black as it goes, Jinx finds herself quickly surrounded by five of the strangest wolves she's ever seen.

Each of the creatures is covered in shaggy, dark green hair shot through with patches of white occasionally.

Long, braided tails coiled around their stomachs, seeming to form an armor of some kind.

What really worries Jinx is that each and every one of them has paws easily as wide as Mammoth's hands, ending in hooked blades for claws.

Their rumbling growls send the ground atremble, and Jinx finds herself wondering how she'd so quickly gone from sleeping comfortably in her lover's arms to being surrounded by Celtic dog-monsters while a demon and immortal witch fight nearby.

Before she can release the growing laugh at the absurdity, one of the dogs, a Cú Sidhe if she'd caught Morgaine's spell correctly, tenses and lunges for her…  
 *****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

All-together, the first spell is "Obey my call now, and under my will, I do summon the powers of this ancient rift to open a doorway and pathway to the Realm of Faerie." in Gaelic, at least according to Google Translate since it would've taken me a long time to compile it from my dictionary. As such, it's probably a rough translation, but likely not entirely off-base.

Ārāma- Hindi: "rest"

Dhvansa karanā- Hindi: "destruct, blast, subvert, etc."

Gaoth- Gaelic: "wind"

a thabhairt dom- Gaelic: "bring me"

cad- Gaelic: "what"

é- Gaelic: "is"

mianach- Gaelic: "mine"

thruaill- Gaelic: "wretch"; from what I remember of the comic's version of Le Fey, she's pretty condescending. I just might have a weird penchant for giving bad temperaments to those who speak Gaelic due to familial experiences, though, so I could be wrong.

Pannāmāya- Hindi: "emerald"

Jahannuma- Hindi: "gehenna, inferno, nether world, etc."

A Questing Beast is an old Celtic- and British-mythology creature. It was a monster as I described, but I wanted to have fun with the aspect that it's a creature born of chaos.

Sēka- Hindi: "compress"

mērh the- Hindi: "into the"

Pr̥thvī- Hindi: "Earth"

Éist- Gaelic: "listen"

le- Gaelic: "to"

mo- Gaelic: "my"

ghlaoch- Gaelic: "call"

agus- Gaelic: "and"

teacht- Gaelic: "come"

a scriosann- Gaelic: "to destroy"

naimhde- Gaelic: "enemies"

Cú Sidhe are gigantic, otherworldly dogs as described, that are told to be harbingers of death and are known widely around the British Isles.

Hope you're all enjoying as immensely as I am, and would be glad to hear your thoughts, whether you are or not. See you next time!


	38. Vengeful

# XXXVII. Vengeful

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

**A quick warning: If you have a phobia of suffocation, there will be a section I mark off for you to skip. Consider yourself warned.**

Jinx dives into a roll, sailing beneath the creature and coming up in a run.

They thunder along the ground after her, and with a curse, she pushes magic into her hands.

" _Pr̥thvī, jāla ina jānavarōrh_!"

The ground responds to her call, several tendrils of rock rising to entrap the Sidhe.

Unlike their much larger relative, the wolves are too fast for the limbs to trap, expertly dodging and lunging out of the path of the traps.

Still, Jinx counts it as a small victory that the limbs are keeping them further and further away from herself, and that the distraction has let her almost get to the pillars.

If she's going to be ripped apart by a pack of magical dogs, she's going to make sure she gets the last laugh on the hag.

When she finally reaches the pillars, though, and feels the energy flowing through the stone circle, she realizes how much power it's going to take to actually topple stones that have stood for millennia.

Growling behind her alerts the meta to the fact that the Sidhe have realized her goal, and with a pulse of energy, the earth beneath her jerks.

It gives her enough momentum for her jump to put her on top of one of the massive stones in the center.

When she touches down, exhaustion presses down on her, but she quickly shoves it down to be dealt with later.

She suddenly finds herself sympathizing a lot more with Raven's constant need to keep going as the wolves bark and yip at her from a shockingly large amount of feet below.

She hadn't put much thought to it before, but as she stares down at the Sidhe, she finds herself very glad that she doesn't have any issues with heights.

A resounding  _smack_  fills the air, and her gaze turns to find Etrigan soaring through the air in a cloud of black smoke.

Morgaine's gaze locks with hers, and once more she feels that strange sensation from the immortal.

"Barghest, stop playing with your food and end her existence," the sorceress commands, her voice echoing to reach them.

As soon as the wolves hear it, one of them turns its gaze to glare at the witch.

Jinx realizes then that the addressed, Barghest, has a body slightly larger than the rest, and that a black coating of some kind makes him almost appear as a blur even to her eyes.

The brief hope that maybe the beast is insubordinate and would take the rest of its pack with him is dashed when its hellish, red glare turns back to herself and it bares its fangs in a snarl.

Her heart skips a beat as it takes a running start and proceeds to use the various pillars around to make its way onto the same slab of stone she stands on.

"Good Barghest?" Jinx tries, releasing a nervous laugh when she realizes that the creature is almost the entire width of her platform.

Up close, she realizes there's a deep intelligence inside of the dog's eyes, and apparently the creature is smart enough to be capable of amusement, if its derisive snort is any indication.

The amusement lasts only as long as it takes for Barghest to coil and lunge at her.

She launches a hexbolt into its stomach, sending it veering off course and making him unbalanced enough to miss when she rolls beneath it.

Jinx winces as a metallic scraping noise tears into her ears, and she spins to face the creature with its claws buried into the stone to stop itself from falling off.

When it lunges again, she tries to jump over it.

She comes down hard on the other side of the lintel, her leg bleeding from a large chunk of missing skin that she finds in Barghest's teeth.

With a hiss of pain, she releases several pink discs at the landing creature.

Even as it moves to evade, several slam into its stomach and send it soaring off the slab.

It comes to a stop with a sudden, sickening  _crunch_  when its spine rams into the pillar opposite them, its body making a U around the stone briefly.

When it lands in a heap and starts growling at her, Jinx realizes how brief her victory will be and leaps onto the next lintel.

She lands and immediately shrieks as the stone wobbles, not nearly as balanced between the two pillars below as the previous had been.

Without thinking, she calls on more magic and the stone beneath cracks and fuses with the platform to balance it.

Barghest bays at her, slowly rising back to his feet.

Jinx's magic cuts off from the stone, and with a start, she realizes the simple solution to both her problems, as well as the very probable damage to her body in the process.

In the corner of her eye, she spots Raven and gives a whistle, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Giz was on to something, Rae, you've definitely picked up restraint from me. We can't deal with two dimensions fighting to crack the Earth like an egg," she babbles to herself.

With a growing suspicion of what the Questing Beast's magic has done to her, she kneels down and lays both hands on the slab beneath her.

All three pillars join her lensed eyes in turning the color of her magic, and the color slowly expands to encompass the rest of the pillars around them.

With each new pillar added to her control, Jinx's heart beats faster in her chest and her vision darkens just a slight touch more.

The energy travels down the stones and into the ground, expanding to the much smaller stones in the outer ring of Stonehenge.

When all 43 are alight as well, the ground begins violently shaking.

Barghest springs back towards her, making his way quickly across the stone towers.

Jinx's body ignites with energy, and the stones change as she pours more and more magic into them.

The sound of cracking stone explodes into the air, and Jinx feels her entire body throbbing in agony as she bends the earth to her will.

Barghest releases a loud screech that reverberates even louder than the rocks' sounds as the lintel beneath him shifts.

Stone grates against stone as Jinx wraps the lintel stone into a circle, crushing it into itself with the Sidhe in the center.

The lintel remains balanced on the pillar beneath it, and Jinx promptly swings one of her arms to the side.

A blood vessel pops in her left eye as the pillar breaks free and falls to its side, crushing itself, Barghest, and one of the other Sidhe not fast enough to get out of the massive rock's path.

The stones continue drinking in Jinx's chaotic magic, and with the fall of the first pillar, a floodgate seems to break open.

As one, the stones crack and crumble, the slab beneath Jinx one of the few remaining intact.

Agony washes through Jinx's entire body under the strain, and she finds herself suddenly wishing that she had thought to call for another magician to help when Raven had first fallen unconscious.

As if in answer to her musings, brought about as much by pain as regret at her approaching death, Etrigan's Hellfire washes over the entire area.

More stone is turned to cinders, and with each broken piece of channeling rock, Jinx's efforts are lifted just slightly more.

The Sidhe run away then, just before the last bits of Stonehenge fall to Jinx's power.

With the fall of Stonehenge, the air somehow becomes harsher, a magic she hadn't even been actively aware of vanishing and leaving her sick to her stomach.

Despite being impressed with herself, she finds a crushing sense of loss she hadn't expected forming as she takes in what used to be the stone circle.

All of this occurs to her in the time it takes for her own supporting stones to crack and crumble, leaving her to fall.

She crashes violently to the burning ground, her body suddenly finding itself racked in spasms and shakes.

For a brief, terrifying moment, she wonders what dying to Hellfire will do to her soul.

And then it doesn't happen, and she finds herself strangely numb to the fact that the black flames are burning the stones still while her own body seems unaffected.

The fire dies down at the same moment an echoing  _crack_  sounds, distracting her from her musings.

Etrigan slams into the ground and Morgaine lowers her raised, smoking fist.

Morgaine's hand opens, and a stream of gold unleashes on the flying demon, crushing him into the meadow in a cloud of debris.

" _ **Bí imithe, chréatúr íseal, agus do do choireacht is féidir leat a bheith curtha as an méid atå déanta agat**_!" she screams, her voice taking on a shocking resemblance to Raven's demonic voice.

At the end of the concentrated eldritch energy, an explosion sets off, and Etrigan is sent soaring high into the air.

" _Dóiteáin_!"

Golden flames spring to life in the air around Etrigan, and with another thunderous detonation, the demon is sent soaring aflame back down into the meadow.

When the demon is out of sight in the depths of the ground, Morgaine turns her rage on Jinx.

"Do you have  _any_  idea what you've  _ **done**_!?" she screeches while stomping her way towards the unmoving meta.

Despite her blistering pain, Jinx pushes herself to her feet using every bit of will available to her.

"Yep. I just took down something that nature couldn't take out in several millennia, and killed some really old monsters in the process."

Jinx's expectation for a spell being hurled at her insolence is surprised when, instead, a fleshy fist rams into her stomach and sends her tumbling back to the ground.

"Clearly, you don't realize what the significance of what you've done is, insolent child," the immortal hisses in a voice like death given sound.

"You might be surprised," Jinx responds before coughing a glob of blood to the ground.

A hissing sound reaches her ears, giving her all the warning she needs to push herself into a backward dive.

Where she'd stood, Excalibur cleaves the ground in a halo of golden light.

Strangely, the remnants of Hellfire that she rolls into disappear the moment her skin touches it, and she finds an unexpected return of her strength.

With a huff, Jinx calls on yet more of her magic and sends a wave of rock and dirt to slam into the surprised witch.

Jinx presses her advantage, adding more and more weight to hopefully crush Morgaine.

With the burst of green fire that she releases, her returned strength quickly spends itself, but she refuses to let up on the attack when the immortal releases a scream beneath the earth.

It takes her roughly three seconds to realize the scream wasn't born of pain, and another second for her to recognize the burst of gold within the shell of rock and flames.

By that time, it's too late for her to dodge the debris as it's sent slamming into her, the sharp stone and coarse dirt ripping even more skin from her.

"Does your impudence know  _no_  bounds!?" Morgaine screams.

Jinx's response is interrupted when the rocks and dirt covering her suddenly coalesce, becoming a crushing skin around her.

The weight presses into her chest, making her breathing shallow and pained.

Her eyes widen in horror as more piles onto her frame, pressing her to her knees on the ground.

"What-"

"I've heard enough of your mouth,  _thruaill_ ," Morgaine hisses. "I can't undo what you've done, but I will use your death as a tribute to the Fae instead."

As Jinx watches in terror, the immortal approaches her and her outstretched hand glows gold.

 

** **Any pnigophobes and/or claustrophobes, this is where you'll want to skip ahead****

"For the pain you've caused so many today, I'll grant you a death that, as I understand it, is among the most agonizing.  _Bí gan aer_."

Dirt and grass rise in front of Jinx's face, and in the most terrifying in moment in her life, she realizes the immortal's intention.

Her head becomes heavy under the choking weight, her scream interrupted by a clump of grass moving to cover her mouth.

She begins struggling against her bindings, releasing every ounce of hex magic in her body into the coating.

It's to no avail, as every time she breaks somewhat free, Morgaine sends more earthen material to cover her.

Jinx's eyes remain uncovered throughout, her pink lenses meeting the golden glow of the immortal's own.

Soon, though, her body begins shutting down as her lungs and heart desperately burn with need for new oxygen.

When her vision goes black, Jinx believes for a moment that it is Morgaine's doing until realizing it's her own eyes that are beginning to fail.

In her mind, she screams Raven's name as her heart begins to stutter.

 

** **Commence reading here, pnigophobes and claustrophobes**!**

Once more, some divine being seems to have pity on the meta, and the soothing touch of Raven's soul-self rises around her body within the rocks.

The next moment, she finds herself limp in Raven's arms, the sound of the rocky tomb cracking only vaguely registering in her frayed mind.

Her tears soak through her lover's cloak as she desperately takes in as much of her lover's embrace as she can.

Something strange briefly settles in her mind, and when it vanishes, she finds herself somehow calmer.

Noticing the familiar touch of her lover's soul-self, she tightens her hold on her girlfriend's cloak.

"Don't know… what the hell that was… and don't care… thanks… You… have some…  _amazing_  time, Raven," Jinx rasps.

" _ **So we're clear, you no longer have a high ground about me pushing myself too far**_ ," Raven muses in her demonic echo of a voice.

With a laugh, Jinx wonders how she could ever have compared the sounds that left Morgaine's mouth to the sweet cadence.

She then realizes that, indeed, her lover's skin is a deep scarlet, and that all four of her eyes are glowing black while locked on something, presumably the enraged immortal.

"The score's… still… like one to… six or seven," Jinx rasps, her throat rapidly ceasing its horrific burning.

" _ **Fair enough**_ ," Raven chuckles.

The demonling lowers the meta gingerly to the ground, laying her on a patch of soft grass.

" _ **Please, just hold this and don't move, okay? You might break something if you try to move too much,**_ " Raven frets while handing the pink gemstone to her.

Jinx begins to argue, only to realize that the crushing weight of the rocks has, in fact, left her limbs feeling on the verge of breaking.

Further, the gem coats her in a lovely warmth, as though Raven's body still coils around her, and a small smile creeps onto her face as the horror is washed away.

"Are you much better?" she asks, staring into Raven's lensed gaze.

The first few times she'd seen her lover's demonic form, it had been very difficult to read anything from the seemingly empty lenses of color.

Somewhere along the way, though, she'd become able to read her expressions even in this form, unlike any else they'd ever run across.

And in that moment, she believes the demonling's terror is even greater than her own.

" _ **The trance has done its job, as did your gift. I'm tired, but I can't allow any more harm to fall to you.**_ "

Jinx merely nods, clutching more tightly to the gem as she  _hears_  the still-present tiredness in her lover's voice.

Seeming satisfied, Raven plants a kiss on her forehead before leaving her inside what Jinx then realizes is a glowing circle carved into the grass, her duffle bag resting just within the border.

Raven materializes in front of Morgaine in a burst of black, her feet hanging several inches off the ground.

"Another demon? This day remains truly foul," Morgaine mutters while meeting the psychic's glare.

" _ **You would kill my mate**_ ," Raven snarls. " _ **You have brought Hell upon yourself, Morgaine Le Fey**_."

"Even that fool Blood is more powerful than you," Morgaine laughs.

The world darkens around them, and Morgaine watches as tendrils of living shadow expand from beneath her white cloak.

" _ **You do not know what I am capable of.**_ **No one** _ **harms what is**_ **mine** ," Raven snarls.

Even on the verge of passing out, Jinx feels blood rising to her face at the bold claim, but even with the mask, the meta can tell Morgaine is less impressed.

It's then that her mind falls into the comforting embrace of the gemstone's energy and she falls unconscious, the rising bubble of darkness around her utterly unnoticed.

"Demons," the immortal scoffs. "Always such petty creatures. You've chosen a day where I have no patience to entertain you. Etrigan was far your better, much as it pains me to admit any strength or merit to that beast, and I've just finished besting him yet again, so honestly, what chance do you see?"

" _ **Which of us is stronger is debatable. What isn't is that I was watching the entire time I was in my trance, greatly sped up thanks to you giving my mate the materials to construct such a high concentration of magic for me to absorb. Your energies are tapped, Le Fey.**_ "

"You presume much," Morgaine hisses before raising Excalibur above her head to strike.

" _ **You fought Nimue and Etrigan both, while also calling on magic old enough to call both the Questing Beast and Barghest to you. Right now, Excalibur is all that keeps you going.**_ "

Following her declaration, a soul-self limb launches into existence and clamps around the sorceress's wrist.

A  _crack_  follows, and as her hand goes limp, a second limb grabs Excalibur from the air.

Before the sorceress can react, Raven drops the blade through a portal and into the depths of Nimue's lake.

She buries the sword deep into the rocky bottom before closing the portal, watching in satisfaction as Morgaine's aura darkens in the distinct way that exhausted souls do.

" _ **Now you're going to tell me everything you know about the children of Trigon, or I'm going to separate your head from your body. It will not**_ **kill** _ **you, per se, but it will certainly make the job of ending your miserable existence simpler for Etrigan.**_ "

A grunting noise sounds in response, signaling Etrigan's return to consciousness somewhere within the crater his impact formed.

"So you've returned Excalibur to make me get it once more when this is finished. You are but a child, upset over a broken toy, with the delusion that you're capable of killing an immortal," Morgaine mocks.

In response, one of the tendrils snaps into action, and the immortal suddenly finds herself impaled on the soul-self.

While the tip rips through her body, the darkness expands to envelop the witch's entire torso in a crushing wrapping of energy.

Raven presses the attack, a red color bleeding into her attack as she slams Morgaine to the ground, pinning her entire body on the weight of the skewering spike.

" _ **Having no patience is something we share in common,**_ " Raven muses over Morgaine's agonized grunting. " _ **I cannot kill you, indeed. But you intended to make Nimue wish for death in her own immortalized agony, and**_ **that** _ **I can grant you**_ _."_

Etrigan stumbles towards them, his expression cast in an infuriated snarl.

"Only  _I_  have the right to kill the harpy," he hisses.

Raven raises a brow at him, her psychic hold on the witch tightening until something gives with a  _snap_.

" _ **I know the claim of which you own. As soon as I'm done with her, you can have her. I assure you,**_ " she continues when he makes to argue, " _ **you don't want to test whether I'm truly on my late father's level, while my Jinx lies injured because of this harpy.**_ "

Unexpectedly, Morgaine laughs at that, drawing both demons' attentions to herself.

"Child, you have no  _idea_  what's coming. You have no idea what your  _mate_  has done," she laughs.

Something about the immortal's words turns Raven's blood cold.

" _ **She stopped the Fae from being loosed on Earth. Admittedly, she may've been able to do so in a less destructive way to one of this planet's monuments, if she had been given enough time, but to be childish, you started it**_ ," Raven reasons.

"And tell me, why would I choose  _now_  to unleash the Fair Folk on this world anew? I could have gotten that foolish metahuman to retrieve the blade for me at any time I wished. So  _do_  think, for a moment, why I would choose to not do so until after the rumors of Hell coming reached my ears?"

Raven winces at that, the confirmation a slightly horrifying one.

" _ **Because you're an opportunist and would assume that most would fail to notice your workings. A not unreasonable assumption,**_ " she muses.

"Perhaps. But even  _I_  do not wish Hell on this planet. It would leave my dear son nothing to rule. The Faery could be weaponized, used to stay the realm and pushed back into their hovel once finished easily enough."

" _ **Mauris**_ ," Raven swears.

"Fitting enough. This is one of the only portals in existence that would be fit to unleash enough to make a difference. So congratulate your dear  _mate_ for me when she awakens, demon, for what she's wrought. You're but an insignificant insect in the face of what comes."

Raven reflexively tightens her hold, a grunt sounding from the immortal as the soul-self squeezes on her.

" _ **Tell me what you know of those planning to open the Hellmouth. What is done cannot be undone, but it can be used as a stepping-stone to learning and preparing. I know not nearly enough of what my siblings are plotting, and I'm willing to hazard the guess that you know significantly more.**_ "

For a moment, the immortal's glare burns into Raven, before something seems to occur to her.

With a shake of her head, Morgaine releases another laugh.

"Swear an oath on your soul that you shall not interfere with my affairs again, and I will tell you what I know."

Both of the demons' eyes narrow at that.

"Don't trust the word of a witch such as herself," Etrigan warns.

" _ **I will do so only if your information is worthwhile and you equally swear to never enact plans that would endanger or seek retribution upon neither myself nor my mate,**_ " Raven says after a moment of thought.

"A deal is struck, then, demon."

The air becomes thick and heavy, and with a curse, Raven realizes that interfering with the immortal's affairs can be something as simple as restraining her from movement.

She feels Morgaine's amusement as the soul-self disappears back into Raven, her four eyes narrowed.

"Fair enough," she quips while rising back to her feet. "I know few specifics of those involved. I am not part of their group, but all magical dealings make their ways to my ears quickly enough for it to not matter. It is an organization of significant reach and capital, as they would need to be to free that rather loathsome Brotherhood of Evil I understand you had dealings with in your youth."

" _ **And Wotan**_?"

"A puppet as the rest. Your vile siblings are the leaders, and they are using multiple organizations to arrange for their little schemes and heists. I would say that knowing they have a network for certain should narrow it down quite significantly for you, investigator."

Raven processes the new information for a moment before giving a nod.

" _ **This satisfies our agreement. You stay away from us and we will return kind courtesy to you, Morgaine Le Fey. However, I will note that our agreement does not apply to**_ **him** ," Raven muses just before Etrigan's fist slams into the side of the immortal's helmet.

With that, Raven teleports to her lover's side and, taking the bag of their belongings in one arm and the stirring meta in the other, she vanishes into a portal…  
 *****************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Pr̥thvī- Hindi: "Earth"

jāla- Hindi: "trap"

ina- Hindi: "these"

jānavarōrh- Hindi: "beasts"

Fun fact: the sarsen stones making up the pillars known as the Trilithon Horseshoe, or that horseshoe shape of the ring that makes Stonehenge famous, are upwards of 12 ft. tall and have been known to be up to 50 tons heavy. If you're interested in learning a lot about Stonehenge, I recommend the helios website's page on Stonehenge's phases.

Barghest is a legendary black dog that's reputed to terrorize England, especially Yorkshire, that's as described.

Bí- Gaelic: "Be"

imithe- Gaelic: "gone"

chréatúr- Gaelic: "creature"

íseal- Gaelic: "low"

agus- "and"

do do- Gaelic: "for your"

choireacht- Gaelic: "crime"

is féidir- Gaelic: "may"

leat- Gaelic: "you"

a bheith curtha- "be buried"

as an méid- Gaelic: "for what"

atå déanta agat- Gaelic: "you've done"

Dóiteán- Gaelic: "fire"

gan- Gaelic: "without"

aer- Gaelic: "air"

Interesting to note, apparently, there is no way to say "choke" or any of the synonmys I could think of in Gaelic.

Mauris- Latin: "shit"

This entire fight was a particularly fun one for me to write, and I hope it was equally entertaining for you all to read. Be sure to let me know your thoughts! See you all next time.


	39. Plans

# XXXVIII. Plans

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Halfway into stepping through the dimensions and into their home, Raven remembers the state of their apartment.

Just before the other end of her portal connects, she freezes, her soul-self wrapping more tightly around her lover to protect her from the extended stay within the rift.

While Jinx mumbles something incoherent and presses more firmly into the psychic's body, her mind goes to work and reality finally hits her without the wall of sweet, distracting adrenaline.

Their home is gone.

With her siblings out to get the women, especially after their work on Zatanna and Richard, she certainly won't ask to stay at the Tower, especially with both of them so exhausted.

Given their so recent treatment of a monument that had stood on the planet for millennia, both the D.M.A. and the Justice League are also likely not too safe for the women until the drama over their actions calms, assuming it does.

When her barrier around Jinx begins to fray at the edges, the continued stay between dimensions quickly draining the short respite her interrupted trance had gained her, a thought flashes into the demonling's mind.

The next moment, she steps out into the cold streets of Gotham, night shrouding her exit from an alley wall.

Casting her senses around, she makes sure that no eyes are on the women before she stalks across the street and pulls a set of keys from a dimensional pocket.

The building's wards flash to life as soon as she sets foot inside, and without the magic interfering, she feels an aura within that sets her on edge.

Slipping the door closed as quietly as possible, she lifts off the ground and begins floating up the stairs, her blood pressure rising with every inch.

Finally, she finds the man in what she assumes had at one time served as a living room, a TV lying asleep in front of the worn couch.

As soon as she enters the room, he jumps to his feet and stares at her in wide-eyed awe.

"You're-"

Raven floats until she's within reach of the man, her hand instantly fisting in his loose shirt and lifting him from the floor.

Her eyes bleed red, and she lets the mark of Skaath burn into existence on her forehead to add extra intimidation to the shivering man.

"What. are. you. doing. in. this. home?" she demands through grit teeth, drawing him slightly more off the ground and closer to herself with every word.

"We- I- Brother Blood said- but- I don't-!"

His stuttering is abruptly ended by a fist of soul-self lashing out, coloring half of the man's face bright red in pain.

"The home of Angela Roth is  _not_ a fiefdom for your cult. I don't know how you got in here, nor why he thinks he has any right to what is mine, but be assured that I'm sending you from here alive and unharmed  _solely_  to tell Sebastian that any others who are under his command will  _not_  receive the same end. Leave,  _ **now**_ ," she snarls, her voice echoing through the entire building.

He takes the opportunity and bolts down the stairs, the door slamming closed behind his charge to flee.

As soon as he leaves, Raven drops to the floor wracked with trembles.

" _Liga hoc dominium de aliqua sceleratis reputatus_ ," she mutters.

A wince forms as the door below locks itself, and a brief flash of black coats the entire inside of the house.

Her legs begin shaking violently, and with a curse, she stumbles into the nearest room and, sending a thanks to whatever deities are looking after them, lays Jinx's weight onto the bed within.

Feeling her exhaustion crushing down on her, she quickly sends a text message to Gizmo telling him that she'll be sending information as soon as she's again fully conscious.

Jinx begins to stir, and only then does Raven finally allow herself to lie down next to her lover, feeling her body shifting back from its red hue.

Were she more awake, she would spare a worry to having not realized she'd even shifted to her other form in the face of the cultist's presence, but the exhaustion remains too heavy.

"Ugh… I'm picking where our next date is," Jinx mumbles, bringing the demonling's full attention to the meta.

A soft smile creeping across her face, she brings a hand to the meta's face, reveling in the warmth under her touch.

"I'm okay with that. We're safe now."

Nodding, Jinx buries her head into the crook of Raven's neck and presses as firmly against her as bodily possible.

"I'm  _so_  tired."

"It's mutual," Raven assures.

"What's the gameplan?"

"I'm going to sleep, with you here, in my arms where I know we'll both be safe, at least for the few hours we both need. Everything else can wait."

Jinx hums in appreciation of the idea, her eyes slipping closed as she falls into the sweet warmth of her lover's embrace.

Her eyes growing heavy, Raven places a kiss on the meta's forehead before her own eyes slip closed and she joins Jinx in blissful sleep…  
 *************

Raven's eyes reopen once more a full twelve hours later.

She barely moves for the further hour until Jinx stirs as well.

Being careful so as not to wake her lover up, she goes to work correcting every bit of physical damage Jinx's fight with Morgaine had caused.

A relieved smile forms when she realizes how well her sleep has done her, every bit of her strength returned.

To her even further relief, Jinx's wounds are far less severe than she expects, barring the horrific gash through her shoulder, though she finds that her psychology is much less healthy.

The pink gemstone in Jinx's hand is no longer bright, marking that it had more than helped both women along with their slumber.

Once Jinx's body is returned to perfect condition, Raven ponders on how she can possibly help the meta's mind recover from her ordeal.

An image of her siblings' induced nightmare flashes before her eyes, and the thought that had been forming is rapidly shoved away.

" _I will_ not  _risk becoming them_ ," she hisses internally.

The pained whimper that sounds from Jinx combines with the hot, burning pulse of terror that rushes against Raven's every sense in seeming disagreement.

Her caution wars, very briefly, with her concern for her lover.

When more whimpers sound, however, Raven realizes how foolish the conflict is, how inherently different her use of the same power is just from the purpose, and promptly presses her forehead to the meta's.

" _Ego induunt quam sacinam nam vos, amica mea_ ," she whispers.

Her eyes flash black, as do Jinx's own behind her closed lids, and the whimpering ends.

Jinx's mind returns to an utterly peaceful sleep, and the warm emotions radiating out from the meta in place of her terror soothes Raven's guilt somewhat.

Shortly after this, Jinx's eyes open, and upon meeting indigo eyes, a brilliant smile creeps across her lips.

"Good morning, sexy."

Raven almost points out that their "morning" is actually almost noon, before deciding the meta's smile shouldn't be muddied while it can last.

"It is now. How're you feeling?"

Jinx experimentally moves her limbs around, eyes going wide in surprise.

"Good. Amazing, actually. Nothing feels like it's a twitch away from snapping off my body, which I distinctly remember before I passed out."

"That gemstone you made of the Questing Beast had a lot of energy," Raven explains. "Actually, it's a bit distressing that just between the two of us, we utterly tapped what was there."

As if to prove her words, Raven extends the stone between their faces, the warmth that had been there no longer present.

Raising a brow at the pink gem, Jinx runs a finger experimentally over the smooth surface.

"Y'know, if we ever get over the whole "saving the world" thing, I think I could make a killing as a jeweler," she muses. "This thing's beautiful."

"It is," Raven agrees with a warm smile. "Though I might be a tad biased since it's almost identical to your eyes in color."

A blush creeps onto the meta's cheeks, her mouth curving into an embarrassed grin.

"Y-yeah?"

"Slightly less vibrant, but very similar," the demonling responds with a nod.

"Flatterer."

"This is something new?"

"I'm guessin' that the British are goin' to have the color banned, for the next few decades at least, so it's good that someone'll like it in their place," Jinx laughs.

"I wouldn't go that far. Mystics in the area, maybe, but the average human will just chalk it up to some absurd explanation that will make sense in their minds far more than a metahuman crumbling an entire stone circle."

Jinx winces at that, seeming to grasp chastisement where Raven intended none.

"I screwed up, didn't I? Like, Steel might be coming for me soon, screwed up big?"

Raven's mind wars to find an answer both honest and somehow not wounding to her lover.

"You  _did_  err in judgment," she finally begins while rubbing a comforting hand on the meta's tensed shoulder. " _But_  you did not do what you did from malice. Morgaine was opening a portal, and you acted to stop it in the only way you could think of. And it worked. The Faery on this plane will not be happy, but we could not possibly fight two different dimensions at once. I'm partially to blame, as well, so at the least, we'll take the consequences together."

Jinx frowns in response, a finger rising to point at the demonling's forehead.

"Speaking of things we need to talk about," she muses while gently thumping Raven with the finger.

"I am not blind of myself, especially not enough to miss how terrible a problem is if it leaves me unconscious in the middle of a fight," Raven sighs.

"Considerin' that I did it, too, I'm not going to harp on this. But Rae, I need you to share some of the world you try to hang from your shoulders from now on. The two of us dating would be an immediate flag for Steel if we didn't prove from that first time he called it out that we're damn good as a team. I don't want you suffering and taking everything on yourself, as your girlfriend or as your partner."

Raven gently grabs Jinx's raised hand, the meta's warmth quickly combining with her own.

"Your concerns are…  _were_ … valid. I will try to leave the reckless abandon for less potentially fatal endeavors," she adds with a slightly amorous edge to her smile forming.

Grinning, Jinx leans in and steals her breath, only separating again when both of them are seeing black spots.

"Good. As Giz pointed out, I might've rubbed a bit of that off on you, so it ain't like I could actually be mad about it. Still, I'm glad that you managed to wake up long enough to pull my ass out of the fire, and keep me together after."

"You can thank the gem for that. I don't know if you know this, but despite being in a healing trance, I'm not dead to the world. My senses still work, even if I'm not mobile enough to react to dangers such as a chimera coming to bite me in half. I wouldn't have been able to move for another several hours if not for the massive amount of magic you gave me."

"And you kept me from losing my mind, so we can call it even there," Jinx quips. "How'd you do that, by the way? I ain't complainin', but one minute I'm about ready to get pulled from the field for a few weeks of strongly advised counseling, the next I can't give any resemblance of a damn and feel you in my head."

Raven winces, the slight accusation in her lover's tone bringing her guilt back, if nowhere near as strong as prior.

"I siphoned your fear off," she explains.

"Okay… You can do that?"

"As I said earlier, simply because I do not use the powers my siblings abuse does not mean I'm inept with them. If it were anyone else, with the exception of maybe Victor or Koriand'r, I would not have done it."

Jinx nods, a thoughtful expression forming.

"Okay… So, is it a field patch or an amputation kinda' thing?"

"You will still feel fear. But developing a phobia, or symptoms akin to PTSD, will not affect your life, at least in connection to this event. I fear what I can become if I toy with my abilities like that, and abhor doing any mental tampering without your consent, but I couldn't bear knowing that I had a way to heal your psyche from such a trauma and decided to willfully let you suffer. I-"

Jinx's finger presses to her lips, a warm glow in the meta's gaze.

"Raven, relax. You don't need to explain yourself, okay? The fact that you're worried about not askin' me tells me more than anything else that you'd never give me a reason to worry about you using your powers. And I really think you need to start considerin' it, if you want to stand a chance against Jared an' the rest of 'em. "

"I do not want to become like them to beat them," Raven groans.

"If the rest're anything like Jared, that's never going to be an issue, Raven," the meta soothes while running a hand along her lover's jawline.

"Do you remember when you first went to Nevermore?" Raven persists.

"It'd be hard to forget."

Raven presses closer against Jinx, her head resting a hair's breath from the meta's.

"For a time, you were terrified that reality itself was fabricated and that you were in a waking nightmare that you would never be able to say for sure was real or illusion."

Jinx winces at the memory, her hand stilling its stroking.

"Not one of my finer moments," she admits.

"My empathic abilities are no different. I do not want to ever wonder if what I'm experiencing is reality, and so I do not wish to force such a thing on any others. If I change what someone's feeling, if I decide to play around with a person's psyche, unless someone has absolute trust in me to begin with, it's entirely possible that they'll wonder if everything they feel while in my presence is forced on them."

"Okay, I could see why that'd be a problem," Jinx admits in a deep sigh.

"Even worse," Raven continues, "it would be  _very_  easy to fall into a pattern of manipulating people to being agreeable in every situation, the same way that Jared so easily stoked their jealousies and paranoias. It may be different because I have a fantastic spotter, but would you really be able to tell if I changed and manipulated you to think I hadn't? There's much to be said about the lengths an addict goes to. I can say now that I would never manipulate you, but the reality is that there's no way of either of us knowing what I'd do if I became more like my brothers and sisters, like my _father_ , than like myself."

Raven shudders at the thought, not even attempting to hide the fear it causes.

Jinx caresses her cheek, drawing Raven's eyes to lock with her own searching gaze.

"You've actually  _died_  to go against the old man's line of thinking. You're giving yourself  _way_  too little credit here, Raven. You not 24 hours ago used the power that was in  _Excalibur_ , and then you didn't even hesitate to toss it away despite what keeping it could do for you."

Raven considers her argument, a thoughtful light forming in her gaze.

"This is why having someone more than willing to point out when I'm dense is a good thing," she finally sighs. "I did not even consider retaining that sword, and if ever there was an opportunity for destructive addiction, that would have been it."

Jinx nods with a grin.

"Any time, babe. Besides, I can't imagine you needing to rely on more than what you've got. You laid that hag out flat after she kicked  _my_  ass, and I'm not a lightweight," she muses.

"Jinx, you used the Questing Beast as an alchemical base and fought off Barghest, on top of overloading a structure based on absorbing power.  _Not a lightweight_  doesn't even begin to cover it. Frankly, if you could do all that  _and_  beat Morgaine Le Fey, you wouldn't be a mortal."

"I  _am_  pretty awesome," Jinx agrees with a grin. "I'd have to be, to keep up with you. But, uh, out of curiosity, what exactly  _were_  they? Celtic stuff isn't really my thing, y'know."

"Barghest was a particularly powerful Black Dog, mostly terrorizing Yorkshire. Think of him, and the rest of the Cu Sith, kind of like Hellhounds but with more teeth and usually red eyes. The Questing Beast's reputed to be the strongest beast King Arthur ever saw. It was a creature made of chaos."

Her words cause Jinx to scratch at her left shoulder, a phantom sensation coursing through the meta.

"Y'don't say."

Raven picks up on the movement and frowns in thought.

"You were bitten."

It isn't a question, but Jinx nods anyway.

"Damn chimera got a chunk of me before I made it into a stone. Barghest did, too, but the dog at least wasn't poison."

"The Questing Beast poisoned you?" Raven demands, eyes wide.

"I dunno'. It did  _something_  to me, because one minute I was in pain from it bitin' me, the next it was like I swallowed a metric ton of sugar. And when it died, that went away. Same thing happened when I took a spill into Etrigan's Hellfire."

"That should not be possible. If the Beast truly  _did_ inject you with something, you should not have remained aliv- I'm sorry, did you say you fell into Hellfire?" she suddenly interrupts herself, eyes going wide in shock. "What did it feel like?"

"What? Painful. I mean, the thing bit my-"

"Not the Beast. The Hellfire," Raven corrects with a strange glow to her gaze. "You said you fell into Hellfire. That you are alive right now should not be feasible. Hot, cold, like you were being electrocuted, like you were choking, what sensation was there when you touched it?"

Jinx's eyes screw closed in concentration, not sure what Raven's worried over but trying to remember nonetheless.

Frowning, she pictures the contact with the black flames and realizes there's nothing else.

"There wasn't any," she answers.

"That's not possible."

"I dunno' what you're lookin' for here, Rae. I rolled through, the fire was gone, and I was all kinds of recharged."

"That shouldn't be possible for a human…"

Something dark takes form in her gaze, but it disappears so quickly that Jinx almost thinks it hadn't been there at all.

"Then again, I'm not omnipotent, and I should know better than to assume something is impossible. I guess if you received no damage, we can leave well enough alone," Raven sighs.

"Well, we know I'm 100% genuine human, so that's not really a concern. Who knows? Maybe I've just got some freaky trick I haven't found out about yet. Happens often enough with us," the meta responds flippantly.

"Perhaps."

While Raven doesn't seem convinced, Jinx decides to let the issue of her own growing suspicion rest for another time.

"So, uh, where exactly are we?" she asks instead, looking around the alien room.

After bringing it up, she realizes she truly has no idea where they are, the building around them feeling completely foreign despite the telltale warmth of Raven's magic.

"Angela Roth's home."

Jinx's eyes snap to her lover in surprise.

"As in-"

"My mother, before she left for Azarath. Had things not gone as they had, it would have likely been my own childhood home, as well."

"But isn't she… y'know?"

"She is, but the home was paid off. I don't know why I've kept this place up," Raven sighs.

"Wait. You  _own_  this place?" the meta asks incredulously.

"My mother owns…  _owned_ … this place. Victor was the one who found out that nobody had been informed of her relocation and convinced me that I should take it for myself."

"Cy suggested that?"

"I was surprised, as well, actually," Raven says with a small smirk. "But it  _is_  technically mine under the law as the next of kin for the one who owns the home, and I was content to have it if I ever needed it."

"Well, that works out conveniently right now, seein' how the apartment's charcoal. Why didn't you ever tell me about this place. I would've jumped on the chance to have a little more space to live in."

"This home does not hold particularly pleasant memories, by association, and none personally. I've only used it on a rare occasion when I needed to perpetuate the existence of Rachel Roth, whereas the apartment held  _many_  positive memories."

Jinx's expression softens, before a sudden thought brings panic welling through her.

"Oh, shit, my bag! What-"

Raven's soul-self slinks down the bed and onto the floor, and slowly raises the duffel bag for the meta's gaze.

Jinx releases a relieved sigh and goes limp on the bed.

"Thank Vishnu, it'd suck if I took the time to grab that stuff and it ended up under rubble in Britain," she sighs.

Raven chuckles, bringing a red color to the meta's cheeks.

"Barring that," she begins again with an embarrassed cough, "I meant what I said before, Rae. My home's wherever you are. I liked the apartment, don't get me wrong, but it really just means that we'll need to make new memories here."

"You've only seen the bedroom," Raven points out. "And we got here for me to find that Sebastian has decided that because it's associated with the Church, he gets to use it to house his men. I'd love to believe that my threat will be enough, but he's a persistent leech."

"Not to be argumentative, Rae, but a bedroom's more rooms than I've got right now, and I'm guessing there're other rooms here. And considerin' what we just did, I think we can handle a few zealots."

"Fair enough. We can even spend time once everything's finished making it into a real home."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Speaking of plans," Raven starts with a quickly darkening blush, "I'd like to talk a bit more about what we talked about the other day, if you'd be okay with it…"

The blush forms on Jinx's entire face as well, immediately understanding.

"O-okay…"

"When we leave this place, we're probably going to be busy for a long time to come, and you deserve better than me being subtle about this."

With that, she abruptly sits up and pulls Jinx with her.

As soon as they're both fully sitting up, Raven kneels in front of her and clasps her hands over the meta's.

Both sets are noticeably shaking, a fact that slows both of their speeding hearts.

"I know we've been together for less than two years, and I don't have a ring or anything right now to do this properly. But I can't imagine myself trusting, or loving, anyone else as much as I do you."

Her eyes slip closed and she takes a deep, steadying breath before she wills herself to lock gazes with her lover.

"When everything's over and the Earth goes back to its standard, mundane  _end is nigh_ fare, will you marry me, Nicole?"

For a second, Jinx remains breathlessly gaping at her lover.

Just when some worry begins slipping into Raven's mind, the meta lunges forward and tackles her to the ground.

A laugh bubbles up between their connected lips, and when they finally break for air, Jinx doesn't move away from her in the slightest.

"A thousand times yes!"

Grinning, Raven tightens her arms around the meta's waist and pulls her in for another kiss.

A sudden ringing sound makes them both jump, and soul-self lifts the offending phone to the air between the two.

"Can we ignore it? I wanna' just enjoy this for a bit," Jinx whines.

Raven wholeheartedly agrees with her fiancé, and tosses the phone to land on the bed.

As soon as the ringing ends, both of her own phones as well as Jinx's communicator begin shrilling, signaling that whoever wanted them was not going to be ignored.

"Damnit," Jinx groans, her head falling to rest on the demonling's shoulder.

Raven nods in agreement while pulling the communicator from Jinx's belt.

Seeing Gizmo's name on the readout, Raven sighs and the device flips itself open.

"Jinx, what in the  _hell_  possibly made you think that droppin' stinkin'  _Stonehenge_ on its ass would be a good idea!?" the inventor's voice screeches in greeting.

"Giz-"

"I mean, really, what the hell!?" he continues undeterred. "Were ya'  _tryin'_ to give Steel, by which I mean  _me_ , stinkin' heart fai-"

"Shut up, Mikron," Raven growls, effectively cutting him off.

"Hey, I've been doing run-arounds from all kinds'a pissed off people for the last ten damn hours, so I'm gonna' rant when I want," he snarls back.

"Then we're even on bein' frustrated," Jinx growls back.

"Gizmo, I'm going to hang up now. We'll be there in an hour at most, half that at least, and when I get there, you're going to patch me through to Steel so we can hash everything out."

"Don't think I ain't gonna' chew you both out when you get here! Oh, and, uh… it's good that you both got back safe," he adds in an embarrassed mutter before the connection cuts off.

"He was worried," Raven muses.

"Heh… Yeah, I kinda'-"

"I was aware, remember?" the demonling interrupts with a smirk. "Your concern was a valid one."

"So even in the car you were-"

"Yep."

"And when I was shittalkin' to Etrigan?" the meta asks with an ever-brighter blush.

"Even then," Raven chuckles. "You putting an irate immortal down was more than a little entertaining."

"Glad I could amuse you," her lover mutters in embarrassment.

Chuckling, Raven kisses her forehead before the two levitate from the ground.

"Always. Now, we need to shower and head out, before Gizmo decides to be annoying."

What was meant to be a ten minute shower easily turns to nearly an entire hour, but luckily Raven had accounted for the inevitable distractions.

Unfortunately, her wonderful mood tanks as they teleport, the realization of what news she has to deliver enough to knock her breath from her.

As soon as they rise from the floor in Gizmo's base, the inventor follows through on his promise of chewing them out.

Raven cuts him off with a raised hand, forestalling whatever piece of his mind he was willing to give the women.

"Enough. There are more important things right now to deal with. Start a video conference with Steel."

Grumbling the whole way, he stalks to his supercomputer and begins typing with a fury.

A man in a fedora and wearing a harsh frown resolves in shortly thereafter, his glare locked on the women.

"Oh, look, our own resident PR nightmares," he snarks.

"Good to see you again, too, Sarge," Jinx quips.

"We messed up. We'll take responsibility for it later," Raven adds. "Right now, there's something tremendous going on. I would like your permission to scramble you and patch you in to a conference call I'm going to start. I'd rather not have to repeat myself on this."

Her tone stops him from arguing, the older man's eyes narrowing as he analyzes her.

"The Fae want someone's head, and Jinx's mojo's all over it. Later's not really an option on this."

"They're not a real concern right now, Steel," Raven reasons. "Listen to what I say with the others I'm going to be calling, then decide if you want to deal with that right now."

"It'd better be  _damn_  good," he grumbles.

Nodding, Raven turns her attention to Gizmo, who himself picks up on how serious the demonling's mood is.

"Encrypt his feed so he can get everything, but Watchtower and all surveillance won't be able to find even a hint of him."

After a series of lightning fast clicks, he gives her a raised thumb.

Not needing other instructions, Gizmo sends out a second call, a green man quickly appearing on yet another monitor.

His orange lenses stare at them, seeming uninterested.

A soul-self limb stretches, and soon the monitor shows four boxes as Nightwing and Doctor Fate join the conference.

Seeing the golden mask, Gizmo whistles and stares at Raven.

"I don't even wanna' know how you know how to call a mystical hermit, Raven."

"It's a long story."

"One I do not have time for," a deep monotone adds, drawing attention to the Martian Manhunter. "Things are busy in the Watchtower at the moment, and we don't have the time to waste on pranks, even elaborate ones such as this," he says with a sweeping gesture at what Raven assumes is a mirror to their own monitor.

"I'm with Manhunter," Nightwing adds. "You just stormed off, and I need to track Deathstroke down."

"Wow, you have one  _serious_  obsession," Jinx laughs.

"If that is all, I'll be taking my leave, now," Manhunter adds.

Raven's bad mood turns even worse at the bickering, the gravity of what she knows nearly crushing her.

"Deathstroke is dang-"

"Everyone shut  _ **up**_ ," Raven growls, her eyes flashing red. "Manhunter, you'll make time for what I have to say. Things are going to go really,  _really_ bad soon, and frankly, we need everything and everyone we can throw at this, including the Justice League and the Titans. You should both know I would not come to either group for help were it not a serious matter that I think is beyond my team. These heists over the past years have had a purpose, and it needs to have an end put to it,  _now_."

That catches all of their attentions, even Gizmo and Jinx going silent in the face of the sudden shift.

"Deathstroke gave us a book. I assume Nightwing sent the information along?" she continues.

"There're many rumors there to sort through," Manhunter answers, "but we do have the information."

"I still don't trust it," Nightwing adds.

"There's a rumor that Deathstroke passed along personally to me. The items are being collected so that enough power can be amassed to open the gate to Hell. Thanks to some coerced information from Morgaine Le Fey, I can confirm that it's not merely a rumor. The children of Trigon, excluding myself of course, are attempting to bring Hell to Earth."

All but Doctor Fate pale at the news, Jinx's hand wrapping around her own trembling one in support.

"The list of missing items has dwindled significantly, and because of it, we've left them with a lot less options and time. It's already gone on too long, and because of it, there's no telling how close they are to opening that door. There are specific organizations that would be likeliest to know more."

Zatanna appears on the screen next to Nightwing, wearing a thoughtful frown.

"Trigon means Church of Blood," she supplies.

"They're old-hat at trafficking with demons," Raven agrees. "Given my…  _dealings_  with them, they'd be far more inclined to jump on board with my siblings. Given that the Brotherhood of Evil was released when this all began, they can't be ignored, either."

"Don't forget Intergang," Jinx mutters. "Hell on Earth would be just the kind of thing that Apokalips could capitalize on."

"There're a lot of fringe organizations that would love the Earth razed," Raven agrees. "But it's more likely that they'll use larger ones with a lot of clout and reach. The Church of Blood is our target, but I can't run the risk that it's simply a red herring. It would be intelligent to use unlikely organizations instead of the obvious, and so I need you to track down the other options."

"You do not make decisions for the League," Manhunter points out.

"Nor the Titans," Nightwing adds.

Raven's eyes bleed red, the room turning cold around her in an instant as her anger flashes through.

"The League is partially responsible for this," she growls. "You let an untold number of incredibly volatile and dangerous magical weapons just sit behind Plexiglas cases with very lax security. They stole them, sure, but you're the ones who left flashing neon signs saying " _please take me_ " over them in your complacency."

Manhunter blinks in the face of Raven's surprising anger, the demonling's speech not done yet.

"You have many, many mystics and detectives on staff. If there'd been attention on this in the beginning, this could've ended before it ever got to this point. So no, I don't make decisions for the League, clearly. As for the Titans, need I remind you, Richard, that I  _started_  this iteration of the Titans for the express purpose of beating Trigon? Fighting me on this is folly. I've died once to prevent this realm from being overtaken, and I will  _not_  do it again because of stubbornness on your parts."

The chastisement hits them hard, both men flinching while Doctor Fate chuckles in amusement.

"Good to see you've recovered well from your dealings, Raven. How can I be of service?" he asks in the ensuing silence.

Raven's anger vanishes and she nods at the mystic.

"I would like to be put in contact with Constantine. While I know much on this subject, he's likely an even larger expert on the mechanics of such a portal. I understand you have some respect from the recluse."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say  _respect_ , but I do have some rapport with him. I'll try to arrange a meeting between you."

"Thank you. And if you wouldn't mind, I'd also ask that you consult the helmet to see if you can pick up anything coming for us that might help us."

"You should know best of all what an undertaking circumventing fate can be, I would think. I will consult Nabu, but you'd best be prepared to face what I find," he warns.

Nodding, Fate disappears from the screen, leaving three men staring at Raven in his place.

"I will call a meeting and inform the others. We will send help wherever needed in the search," Manhunter assures.

"And we'll track Intergang and the Brotherhood," Nightwing declares.

"We'll scramble teams to help, maybe get some searches going," Steel says, his voice not carrying through to the others.

"We'll have teams going around, too. This is top priority," she relays.

With twin nods, Nightwing and Manhunter cut off as well.

Raven releases a sigh of relief, her body relaxing and her eyes reverting to indigo.

"Alright, Raven, you've earned a reprieve. I'll tell Mr. Bones to send the Fae off for now. Once Hell's safely locked up, though, you're going to have people to answer to about destroying Stonehenge," Steel warns.

"It we live through this, I'll relish the mundanity," Raven sighs.

"It'd be nice to go back to good old bureaucracy crap," Jinx laughs.

"Y'know, I'd normally think you were being sarcastic, Diaz," he grumbles. "Gizmo, coordinate things as best you can."

"Sure thing, bossman," the inventor sighs.

The feed cuts off, leaving a once again blank monitor.

"Well, that was way better than expected. Haven't seen Rae give people a verbal smackdown like that in a while," Gizmo muses.

"I let things get to me," she defends.

"Hey, if you hadn't said it, I woulda'," Jinx argues.

"So you're goin' after Blood?"

"I know of a few members of his Church that're  _far_  more scared of me than they're devoted to their cause," Raven agrees.

With that, a bubble of darkness springs around them, and the women vanish from the room…  
 ***********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

liga- Latin: "bind"

hoc- Latin: "this"

dominium- Latin: "domain"

de- Latin: "from"

aliqua- Latin: "any"

sceleratis reputatus- Latin: "trespassers"

ego- Latin: "I"

induunt- Latin: "take on"

quam sarcinam- Latin: "this burden"

nam- Latin: "for"

vos- Latin: "you"

amica mea- Latin: "my love"

Vishnu is one of the three major deities of Hinduism and is dedicated to order, righteousness, and truth. This is irrelevant to the story, just a fun fact.

Hope you all enjoyed this really fluffy and very long chapter as much as my muse did. I debated breaking this into two chapters, but in the end, decided to just keep them together. Let me know what you all think, and I'll see you next time!


	40. Snowed

# XXXIX. Snowed

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven stares down at the stained carpet, her eyes turning scarlet to match.

"Well, you gotta' give it to Jared, or whoever's on this, they're  _good_ ," Jinx says with a grimace.

"Very good," Raven reluctantly agrees. "That's the last on my list they've beaten us to."

The man's soulless eyes stare back at her, his mouth open in the slack-jawed horror of his final moments.

The remains of his body lie elsewhere around the room, showing the marks of a grisly end.

"Well, I'm guessin' by the smell this isn't recent, so at least it's not like we've got leaks," Jinx muses.

"A cold comfort."

"Yeah… I know I'm not gonna' like the answer, but can you pick up anything more with this guy than the others?"

Raven's eyes momentarily flash black, only for her to again find no trace aside from the violence of the victim's death lingering in the air.

Seeing her lover's expression, Jinx groans and runs a hand through her hair.

"Fan-tastic… Let's get outta' here."

Nodding, the women are coated in black energy and vanish from the cultist's apartment.

"If I had to guess, I'd say Blood's better than his old man at payin' attention to the masses," Jinx says as soon as they re-materialize.

In a flash, Raven's hand slams to her side and sends a cloud of destroyed brick into the air.

Jinx's brow rises at the surprising anger, her lover's guilt clear.

"They played around with demons, Rae. Frankly, they were living on borrowed time the second they started playing Blood's game."

"They did not get eviscerated because they played  _his_  game, or because they toyed with some beast; they died because I capitalized on their fear. It was a calculated risk, setting some informants up within the church, and I knew it might end badly, but they did not deserve  _that_ … I was a step behind, and it bit them all," Raven growls through grit teeth.

"Technically clawed, by the look of it," Jinx responds.

The meta doesn't even blink in the face of her lover's glare, nor the dark red bleeding into her eyes.

They'd left the safehouse with high hopes of getting things done quickly, and being on the hunt for her girlfriend's family in a few hours.

While Raven had started out worn down from dealing with two groups that she would've rather not talk to, she'd been sure when they started out that they could end things quickly.

Four hours, and twenty bodies, later, the optimism had long died, and Raven has dwindled almost to Etrigan's charming demeanor.

"Raven, you can't say you caused it. We found twenty that're connected to you, sure, but who knows how many we didn't find that didn't? It's a cult; killing people  _just because_  wouldn't be a stretch. Right now, we need a plan. Because the Church is our best bet, and happenstance or not, we just ran out of cooperative assets."

Raven nods in agreement, though the red in her gaze doesn't dim.

"Another cold comfort, but you're right. We can't know if it's connected to us or not… We've run out of the fearful ones, so our next best bet would be the ones who're awed. Honestly, there's a reason I wanted to avoid going to the fanatics, though, and I don't relish the idea."

"Wouldn't them worshipping you be a huge advantage?" Jinx asks with a frown.

"Perhaps, if I weren't going against the risk that my siblings are also playing on their weakness. While they're now the best sources I can hope for, they're also just as likely to bind or kill me on sight."

Jinx's lips curl into a frown at that, her blood turning cold at the thought.

"Would bindings even work on you? I mean, despite everything, Trigon wasn't an  _actual,_ y'know, brimstone and hellfire  _demon_ , right?"

"I do not know… He was a dimensional spirit, not a Christian demon, but at the same time, the Church summoned him when they were calling for the devil. He may have just capitalized on the invitation, but he may also have actually been called by it. I've never been entirely clear on what the difference between my blood and that of any spawned from Hell is."

"Then how high're the chances they can hurt you? I mean, they  _did_  deal with the old man, but on the other hand, you're kinda' a walking tank compared to humans," Jinx muses.

"In general, the chances are not all that high."

"And in specifics?" Jinx demands with a worried frown.

Raven's gaze casts about as though searching for any listeners.

Seeming unsatisfied, she frowns and a bubble of soul-self rises around them, cutting them off from the dimension.

"In the off chance that they don't know, I see no point risking them discovering this. If they've managed to gain any Rings of Azar, my magic will be useless. If the bearer of such a ring is just an average zealot, I could still put them to the ground with my strength, but if they happened to be a magician of any caliber…"

The statement hangs in the air as the demonling grimaces.

"Okay, that'd be bad. But, I mean, Deathstroke's the last one to have one of those, right? They couldn't, like, make new ones, could they?"

"The Church knows much from their dealings with my father. And my brothers and sisters would likely also know about this, so I do not think it is an impossibility."

The idea worries Jinx, but not nearly as much as it does her lover.

"Alright, so it's a possibility. Well, just look at it like this; you've got me, and there's no reason anything to do with those monks would do a thing to me, so even if they  _do_  try something that could work, they won't get their hands on ya'."

The red dims from Raven's eyes, and she smiles for the first time in a seeming eternity at her fiancé.

"You've no idea how reassuring that really is," she muses.

Grinning, Jinx wraps an arm around the demonling's waist and pulls her tight to her side as they touch down on solid ground once more.

"Oh, I could probably make a pretty good guess. And really, who  _wouldn't_  feel safe with  _moi_  at their back?"

Raven relaxes then, her entire body uncoiling with the release of the building stresses the meta's bravado brings.

"Fair enough," Raven responds with a chuckle. "And I think I might have someone in mind that would be likely to answer our questions. Or likely able to, at any rate."

"Yeah? Anyone I know?"

"Possibly… However, while she's a good candidate, she's dangerous, though for a different reason than any mystics in their numbers."

"Way I figure it, if she can't trap you, she's not that big a concern. They're not the most impressive bunch," Jinx responds flippantly.

Raven's expression darkens once more, and she shakes her head in response.

"She has a good network. One of us alone would be running certain risks with confronting her, but with the both of us, she could potentially learn about many things she shouldn't, including information on the D.E.O. While the apocalypse takes precedent, if we stop it and she's learned things, Mr. Bones would have our asses. But she is the highest member of their group who would likely be stupid enough to let slip what we need to know."

"Okay, I'm not a big fan of the radiating my skin off idea. So what're we doing?"

Raven's expression turns thoughtful for a moment before a grimace quickly takes over.

"It would be a poor idea to go to her as myself. She will know what I look like as a human. Which means I'm going to have to play the part of demon. Still, I suppose it will be less distasteful than trying to question corpses."

Jinx frowns at this, a picture forming that is certainly not pleasant.

"Like… what? Offering a favor, or somethin'? I think I'd rather the radiation than you gambling with your soul like that, Rae. And if she knows what you look like as a human, and they're workin' with Jared and them, she could probably piece things together even if you're glaring with all four eyes."

" _Very_  few people have seen me when I'm like that," Raven reasons. "And it's been years since she's dealt with me, so my change in appearance since then will certainly help me. There's also your involvement to consider."

"What about me?" Jinx demands, seeming ready to argue.

"She will likely know who you are. If they are working with my brothers, and manage to subdue us both, it could end  _poorly_."

"That's a huge  _if_ , Rae," Jinx retorts with a frown.

Her heart begins beating faster at the phrasing, then, and she forces herself to ask a question she's not entirely sure she wants answered.

"But out of curiosity, what makes up 'poorly,' exactly?"

Raven grimaces in response, further worrying Jinx.

"We'll just leave it at a vague term, as I'd rather not think about it. And you're right, it's unlikely that they could manage all that, so long as all of them are on Jared's level of ability and I know they're coming. Barring that, another concern is that demons, with a few exceptions, do  _not_ play nice with humans, meta or otherwise… unless the humans are bound, by magic or familiar contract. While I love your personality, you aren't the kind of person who'd play submissive thrall well."

"That all?" Jinx asks in relief. "Ya' had me worried there. I can act well enough when I want to. Y'know, thief 'n all. And there  _was_  that one time, remember? I dunno', I thought I was pretty good at playing that kind of personality out then."

A heady blush immediately blossoms over Raven's face, her fiancé flashing her Cheshire smile.

"Besides," the meta continues while tightening her hold, "much as I'm lookin' down on them, they're a cult centered around playing with demons. They might be stupid, but I'm  _not_  lettin' you go in alone. And if this chick's the first person you thought of, there could be a damn trap, too."

The blush dims as Raven nods in agreement, her own embrace pulling the meta even closer.

"I told you I've learned my lesson. No more soloing things. But I don't relish the thought of playing a stereotypical demon, and especially loathe the idea of possibly having to treat you badly. Because I very well might, to sell this if you want to go through with this plan. She's no magician, but she will know if I've put her in an illusion, and her job makes her particularly good at picking up on lies and acting. Glamours may work, but they also likely won't, especially if the Church has learned from past mistakes and taught people how to detect them. And she'll be learned enough to know that demons going around making deals are not the kind that will be loving in their handling of familiars, and even worse with any other humans."

"I'm sure we can come up with somethin'," Jinx remarks flippantly. "If it really comes down to it, we can always go with the other options that I'd rather not think about if there wasn't a damn  _apocalypse_  on the line. You can't say much that'd convince me to not go with you."

A slight smirk forms, and she leans in to press her lips almost to the tensed psychic's ear.

"Besides, you're only allowed to go all growly when I'm around. I don't like sharing."

Raven shivers, causing Jinx's expression to take on her Cheshire smile.

"If it'll make you feel better, you can take on some extra chores and services when all this is over so I can just be lazy and supervise anything we have to do to fix that house up."

While still not happy about the possibilities of what they're walking into, Raven's pessimism dims in the face of the meta's almost cheerfulness.

In the span of a few seconds, they're coated in black and once again find themselves on solid ground.

Jinx looks around at their new location, finding themselves away from the Gothic architecture of Gotham and instead on an utterly unremarkable street.

She'd expected Raven to take them to another apartment, which is why finding businesses surrounding them confuses the meta.

With a frown taking hold, she continues looking around for any clue as to where the cultist would be.

Seeing her confusion, Raven nods towards the other end of the street, sending her pink gaze there.

Confused, she finds herself staring at a building with a news station logo adorning the top of their door, a similar sign hanging from the roof higher up.

"WUBC News… okay, gonna' clue me in here, Rae?"

"She works here," Raven responds with a shrug. "Her segment should be ending right about now."

"Well, if she's a reporter, that bit about her network would make sense, especially if she's with them. Don't think I'm going to know 'er, though. Was never a night news person."

"All the same, she'll know you. Although, without the hair as it used to be, she might overlook your eyes and miss it, since your group has been missing Gizmo, Mammoth, and yourself for so long, now that I'm thinking of it," Raven muses while inspecting the meta.

"I bulked up a lot since I was a kid. If you go in and she doesn't know who you are, she'll probably have no idea."

Something about the station catches Raven's attention, and she gives a nod, seemingly to herself.

"She'll be going to her dressing room now. We'll play this by ear, but try to act all… I don't know… out of it, I guess."

Jinx's body instantly relaxes, her posture becoming slouched while her lips curl into a grin.

Her eyes go half-lidded, and she meets the demonling's gaze with a raised brow.

"Like this?"

Nodding, Raven leans forward and kisses the surprised meta, her pale skin flushing red at the unexpected act.

When she pulls away, the demonling gives a smile of her own.

"Now you look about right. This could work. Just, um, try to keep acting out of it, even if she asks you any questions. If something happens, you can drop it, but if I can avoid drawing attention to us, I'd like to."

"Think I can manage that. Let's get going."

The two set off for the station, their bodies becoming wrapped in a thin layer of magic as they pass through the doors.

" _Avertere_ ," Raven's voice hisses as they move into the lobby.

As expected, nobody seems to notice their presences as they walk towards the dressing rooms, their attentions moved by the spell to everything else around them.

They finally come to a step in front of a door with the name Bethany Snow on its plaque, Raven resting her hand against the wood.

Red spreads through her quickly, her body turning scarlet in a matter of seconds.

In a cloud of darkness, her white cloak shifts away from her and is replaced by a black dress of living shadows, the soul-self twisting to cover her body.

Finally, her nails grow to black talons, the change one that Jinx had grown used to not seeing.

Taking a deep breath, Raven's four eyes glow black and they phase through the wall, coming to stand behind an oblivious blonde woman.

Raven silently floats towards the reporter, the blonde's attention focused on a PDA she diligently taps away at.

Jinx finds herself unimpressed with Bethany Snow, everything about the blonde seeming overtly fake.

Then, something catches her attention and Bethany's gaze moves up to the large mirror in front of her.

Her eyes widen and she opens her mouth to scream the moment she sees Raven, who is on her in an instant.

A black hand coils around the reporter's throat and lifts her off her chair, her body jerking as she struggles against the soul-self.

" _ **Do not scream, lapdog of Sebastian Blood, or you will greatly regret it**_ ," Raven warns, her voice seeming to echo around the dressing room.

While still clutching at the ethereal claw, her body otherwise goes still.

Seeing the acquiescence, Raven lowers her so her feet touch the floor, though the soul-self expands to trap her entire torso as well to keep her in place.

" _ **I am going to ask very simple questions, and it is to your benefit that you answer them. Honestly, if you like your neck in the shape needed to breathe, as I can smell lies and have no patience to play around.**_ "

Jinx shivers at the threat, halfway convinced of Raven's seriousness herself despite knowing better.

With a start, Jinx realizes with a better look at the blonde that the woman's pantsuit is the exact shade of red as Raven's skin, a small coat nearby and her shoes also the same color.

The reporter jerks her head up and down in a desperate show of acceptance, her terror pulsing through the air.

Once her eyes land on Jinx, though, something shifts.

As though another person's presence makes a difference, she assumes a facade of calm, meeting two of Raven's eyes.

The demonling smirks at the bravado, feeling Jinx's own amusement add to her own.

" _ **We'll start with the simple questions. Someone is looking to open a portal. Does the Church of Blood seek to revive Trigon the Terrible by helping them?**_ "

"I don't think so. All I know is that I keep my head by not asking questions like th-!"

Her response is interrupted by a flash of black, a resounding  _smack_  echoing through the room.

The reporter's head jerks to the side, her eyes widening in shock at the sudden, sharp pain.

Raven finds it worrisome, how appealing the heady spike of fear from the blonde is to her senses.

Wincing, her mental shields clamp down, filtering out much of the emotion emanating through the room.

" _ **I told you not to lie to me, Bethany Snow. If you can't answer such a simple question, you're of no use to me. I'll try again. In what capacity do the children of Trigon seek to use you?**_ "

"The Sons. That's what they call themselves," Bethany corrects with a quivering voice. "Sebastian told me that they only have one sister, and didn't want to be associated with her."

Raven's upper left eye twitches slightly, a reaction that the reporter only barely notices in her haze of panic and awe over the creature before her.

But notice it she does, and it gives her pause as she realizes that somehow, the demoness looks vaguely familiar.

"Why would a demon care, anyway? Wouldn't that be a good thing to you guys?"

Raven feigns irritation, dragging the reporter through the air towards her.

" _ **Do not assume that all of us think the same, human. I live on this side of the divide. If people open those gates, your Justice League and their allies will be actively**_ **looking** _ **for demons. That would make living in relative comfort here, with the occasional pet,"**_ she says with a nod towards the immobile meta at her back, " _ **significantly more trying.**_ "

"W-who is she?" the terrified blonde asks, her voice barely audible.

" _ **My familiar. Irrelevant to you. The point is that if your bosses, these**_ **Sons of Trigon** _ **go through with their scheme, and the mystics such as the Order Lord they employ find me, they could make the great amount of energy I spent escaping my home in the first place wasted. I do not allow for wasted effort. Which is where you lot come in, as a group actively seeking to aid that outcome along.**_ "

Bethany frowns in thought, her mind picking up on more of the familiar feeling from both women.

The silent woman's eyes in particular gain her attention, the vision of them nagging at the back of her mind.

Further, her vacant expression strikes the blonde as very odd, her eyes seeming entirely to sharp to match the rest of her expression.

A suspicion forming, she meets the demon's eyes while widening her own not unlike a startled doe's.

"D-do you kidnap people regularly? She looks so…  _out of it_ … are you… oh god, are you going to do that to me?"

Raven's teeth are bared in a feral sneer, the soul-self tightening around the woman until she releases a squeak of protest.

" _ **Do not be so arrogant. Only special humans are taken under my influence.**_ "

Even aware of the act her lover's putting on, Jinx can't help but blush at the statement, wondering if the statement had been meant just as much for herself.

"Wh-what's special about her?"

Raven twitches her finger in Jinx's direction before gesturing the meta forward.

She forces a stumble into her steps as she makes her way to Raven's side, trying hard to fight the knot of tension in her stomach as she comes to a stop.

Once they stand next to each other, Raven lays her hand on her fiancé's shoulder, her clawed grasp seeming far harsher to the startled reporter than it really is.

Feeling the light pressure, Jinx reacts, her face scrunching up as though her bones are being compressed.

With her other hand, Raven grasps the wrist of the same arm and quickly pulls her hand up, the meta's own movement lost to Bethany.

" _ **A demonstration,**_ " Raven muses while meeting the meta's gaze.

A jerk of her eyes downward and a light twitch of her index finger and thumb around Jinx's wrist clues Jinx in, and a pulse of pink sparks lights immediately.

The next second, Bethany's phone cracks and a small puff of smoke rises from the shattered device.

"Wh-Wha-!?"

" _ **She was looking for power, and found me. Clever girl, she found a way to keep me from killing her, and I admit, I was more than a little impressed. So I gave her all the power she could ever want, for a price,**_ " Raven responds with a shrug, both women surprised with how quickly she concocts the cover story.

"Wh-what price?" Bethany asks, a strange gleam in her eye.

Her awe over the display is tempered by the pink sparks she'd seen, memories of years gone by occurring to her and collecting in an instant.

" _ **Working in my stead when I have better things to do, among other services,**_ " she quips, the suggestive tone applied to the last word causing a shiver to run through both women around Raven, if for very different reasons.

" _ **Most humans would die from even attempting it, and she seems like she's going to be bound to me for a**_ **very** _ **long time with her record so far. Again, this is irrelevant to you. What matters is what services you provide the Sons of Trigon, and if their goal will inconvenience me.**_ "

Raven's senses expand, taking in the strange conflict coming from the reporter.

She briefly notices Jinx's embarrassment, an edge of amusement taking over her lips as she meets the meta's slightly glazed eyes and her blush darkens even further.

Her attention moving on, wariness of her own sets in as she picks up the emotions mixing with Snow's fear.

Unaware of the shift, the blonde continues with her facade.

"Why me? Why not Brother Blood? I can't influence anything."

A grin spreads across Raven's lips, her soul-self sucking the light from the room and creating horrific shadows to accentuate the expression.

" _ **I deplore that filth and his entire line. Stains on your race and mine, for consorting with false demons like Trigon. Oh, you lot refer to him falsely, don't you? Consorting with**_ **Skaath** _ **, then. I'd rather avoid dirtying myself with his taint, if possible, and you're a**_ **very** _ **easy person to find. I debated having this discussion during Snow Storm, as it would likely be amusing watching you flounder to explain a demon suddenly appearing asking about a cult, but again, I've no interest in having those heroes knowing of me. If you don't answer my question, though, I can easily move to him next once I've broken you. My patience is spent, and you're answering, now, if you value living.**_ "

The threat doesn't bring as much fear as Raven expects, worry beginning to worm its way into her mind as the reporter meets her gaze, if nervously.

"I'm just the PR person. Sebastian mostly keeps me in the loop because I'm good at spinning stories in our favor. Maybe give them warnings if I hear about the Titans or other groups moving. I think they're using us to get a ton of magic artifacts around the world, but I only know in vague terms and only because I've been paying attention, not because I've been told about it. Those six are rich, and they're supposed to grant our wish to bring Lord Skaath back as long as we help them, and that's enough to convince everyone, so I'm not gonna' get myself killed by them. Apparently they went on a spree the other day on everyone who  _was_  that stupid, too, so lucky me."

Raven nods in acceptance, nothing indicating the reporter is lying.

The realization that it wasn't her involvement that had the cultists killed also releases some of her guilt, though not all of it.

The amount of information she gains is unexpected, but very pleasant, a sentiment that Jinx's emotions in the air seem to agree with.

" _ **Good human. You've bought your right to retain your head. However, I would advise that, if you don't wish to lose that right, you would cut your ties while you can. Get out from under that priest's grasp, because I will not tolerate the plans of these Sons of Trigon, and will pave my way to them with anyone who would aid them under my feet.**_ "

"I can't just  _leave_  them like that," Bethany argues, her fear once again in place. "If asking questions can get you killed, I  _don't_  want to know what dropping out when you're in the inner circles can do right now."

" _ **You spin stories for a living. And you're among their higher echelons. Instead of pestering foolish, mortal children, you could crumble the the Church of Blood, were you so inclined. I imagine it would do**_ **wonders** _ **for your career, at that**_ ," Raven adds.

Jinx feels the hair on the back of her neck rising as some strange energy moves through the room, Bethany's eyes glazing over somewhat while Raven's own glow slightly darker.

The meta doesn't understand what Raven is doing, but it seems to have an effect on the reporter, her head nodding slightly in agreement.

"I could, couldn't I? That would be the story of the year. I could even win a Pulitzer Prize!"

Raven blinks at the response, surprised by how easily convinced the cultist of such standing in the Church is.

" _ **Indeed**_ ," she simply responds, frowning in puzzlement. " _ **Get on that, then. I've business elsewhere this evening**_."

Bethany doesn't even acknowledge their exit as the women leave the room in a pulse of black light, and soon they once again find themselves on the street outside, though in an alleyway away from eyes.

Raven's skin turns grey as soon as the barrier drops, the confused frown still on her face.

"Well that worked out well," Jinx muses, wrapping an arm around the demonling's waist.

The touch distracts Raven, and she nods while staring at the meta.

"It did. This is far more information than I thought we'd get."

"And we've got solid numbers now. Six is a lot less than I was worried there would be. Not to mention knowing the Church's got their paws all over the items. Why didn't you, y'know, make her not remember we were ever there, outta' curiosity?"

Raven grimaces, the question sounding almost accusatory as she wonders at the ease of her convincing the blonde.

"Faust is one thing. But her mind is warped enough as it is, to be in that cult. She does not need me doing something like that. Besides, if she turns on them, then removing the memory would be unwise."

"Yeah, she definitely didn't seem all there. I mean, did you see how she acted tough when she saw me? I thought she was a second from a heart attack, then she acts like she sees demons every day," Jinx chuckles. "She's definitely got the personality of a reporter."

Raven's lips turn up at that, a nod signaling her agreement.

"It was certainly amusing."

"So, what's the deal, anyway? I'd think someone who's so open about being with them wouldn't be welcomed with open arms by even the scummiest news stations."

"You'd be surprised," Raven quips. "Though she was only open about it because I established that I was aware of it from the start. And the station is the property of the Church, so that certainly works in her favor, as well."

"Why didn't you try to make her one of your assets before? She seemed pretty open to the idea of going behind their backs."

Raven's frown returns, and Jinx realizes with a start that the psychic is as unsure of what she did as the meta.

"When I was a Titan, she would routinely spin stories to make us look like evil monsters picking on poor, saintly Brother Blood. It would not have gone as it did then. And she was harmless enough despite the public opinion she shifted in their favor that I didn't really care all that much. I only realized when researching the Church that she's fairly high up in their members."

"Well, either way, this worked out better than the last twenty. We got the info we needed. What's next?" Jinx asks.

"We need to think on this. If the Church has the artifacts, then that is our next plan, but it's just as possible that they only retrieve them for my brothers."

"Sounds good to me. Oh, and uh, even though I'm a little bummed I'm going to need to help you redecorate now, I'm glad you didn't have to do anything too bad. Y'know, not counting the whole  _I will behead you_  bits. A bit over the top, I thought, but it worked."

Snorting, Raven pulls her closer into her embrace.

"Something to be grateful about, indeed. Still, I enjoyed that  _far_  too much," Raven sighs…  
 ****************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Avertere- Latin: "divert"

I'm not sure how well this chapter came out, at least in part to having spent most of the week on an animation project and not having too much time to work on this. Still, it is a scene I felt needed to be in the story, and hope it was fairly enjoyable nonetheless. More action next chapter, I promise. Hope you're all enjoying, and see you all next time!


	41. Temptation

# XL. Temptation

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx grins, laying her head on Raven's shoulder.

"Don't let it get to you. I sure as hell found that entertaining. Kinda' hard to feel bad for most people that're fully aware of the shit Blood's got them into and keep on, y'know?" she adds with a shrug.

Raven's retort is interrupted by a sudden throbbing in her forehead, her eyes going wide at the sensation.

Seeing the dull red mark on her lover's forehead, Jinx tenses at her side, casting her eyes around for the cause.

Shaking her head, Raven wraps her arm around the meta's waist and her eyes turn obsidian.

"Too cramped here, people could get killed," she offers in an almost-growl.

It's all the warning Jinx gets before the world loses all color around them, the Mark of Skaath following suit.

They plant their feet on the ground for a moment before flying upward into another portal.

Jinx's equilibrium, one of her most finely honed characteristics, leaves her after Raven's fifth chain-teleportation, her knees jerking and wobbling when they come to a stop.

With a wince, she brushes snow from her shoulder and fights the nausea coursing through her stomach.

Raven's strategizing in the time she was moving is not as helpful as she'd hoped it would be, her brother's presence forming only seconds after they land.

"How long… will that get u-"

Clapping sounds at their backs, echoing through the air and sending a violent shiver through the meta.

"Never mind," she groans.

Taking a deep breath, she regains her balance and turns with Raven to face her brother, Jared seeming greatly amused despite the murderous glow in his eyes.

" _ **You can't run like that, sis**_ ," he laughs. " _ **You find those fools by the stink they permeate the air with, but while more tasteful, you're no better. You might as well leave a neon sign telling me where you're going. ** _Jumping dimensions, maybe, but I imagine that wouldn't agree with the_ human _._****_ "

Raven's eyes narrow, the indigo immediately shifting to red, though her skin remains grey for the moment.

" _ **Oh, don't be so**_ **proud** _ **,**_ " he mocks, the empath's wince worrying Jinx for a moment. " _ **It's the same for all of us. Y'know, if I'd known you'd go running to that airhead, you could've just asked. The vampire would've gladly given her over if it got you into the family business. Wouldn't have needed to waste all that energy, and I'd imagine you should keep that in mind for the near future.**_ "

Despite his lack of pupils, Jinx feels his gaze shift to her, and pink sparks pop and sizzle in the air around her in response.

" _ **Though I suppose someone that feisty**_ **would** _ **be far more entertaining than Miss Snow. I think Lust is going to have a field-day when he gets his hands on you.**_ "

The insinuation brings Raven's second set of eyes free, a growl vibrating in the back of her voice.

"It wouldn't do him much good when I separated it from his arm the second that happened," she snarls as her voice gains a deeper tone. _ **  
**_

Before her brother can retort, a cough signals another presence to all of them, the three turning their attention to the newcomer.

A man seems to materialize from the shadows, all the light seeming to drain into him save for the lit cigarette hanging from his lips.

The wind picks up around them at his appearance, the shadows rippling around him in a way suggestive of it really being nothing more than a dark trench coat.

He stares at the three while taking a long drag from his cigarette, making Raven almost wonder if he's just an unfortunate human that stumbled upon them.

The sharpness to his gaze and the snort that sounds when he focuses on Jared tells her otherwise, however.

"Damned waves. Do it every time," he mutters in a heavy, gruff cockney dialect.

" _ **What foolish human dares to interrupt us?**_ " Jared snarls.

The man's brow rises momentarily at the statement before grinning and raising his right hand.

For a moment, Raven believes he's making a rude, and incredibly stupid given the situation, gesture at her brother.

Then, his thumb joins and a  _snap_  sounds, reverberating unnaturally around them.

Nothing happens for the span of several seconds.

And then the ground trembles at his side before rising in a massive column.

The concrete grinds obnoxiously together, cracking and fusing at seemingly random.

Soon, though, the column takes on a humanoid form, a single hole suggesting an eye in the center of its rotund head.

His hand still raised, the man whistles and points at Jared.

In an instant, the creature, a golem were Raven to guess, coils in on itself before leaving the ground.

Jared curses and dives backwards, the ground where he'd stood turning to a crater when it lands.

The creature doesn't give him a reprieve, no joints or muscles existing to fracture from the impact.

A sound almost like a roar leaves it as it lunges after the retreating demi-demon.

Suddenly the man is next to Raven, standing on the side opposite the increasingly tense Jinx.

"You must be Raven," he muses in greeting.

She nods in agreement as he pulls a long draw on his cigarette, watching the golem chase her brother in both amusement and awe.

" _ **I am**_."

"Fate told me some bad shit was goin' down. Said you were lookin' for me. I told 'im to piss off, I'm workin' somethin' right now that's more long-term than your bullshit. Apparently, the waves didn't agree," he grunts, tossing the spent stub to land under his heel.

Something explodes nearby, rocks and other debris raining down to bounce harmlessly off the soul-self that snaps into existence around them.

"So, what the hell d'ya' want?"

" _ **I'd heard about your disposition, but the stories didn't really cover everything, it seems, Constantine.**_ "

Jinx's focus snaps away from the fight, taking in the man's appearance and trying to connect the man to the stories she'd heard.

"Yeah? Just cause the waves want me to help doesn't mean I like it. So, what do you want, so I can piss off?" he demands.

The empath's answer is again cut off by another explosion, this time the golem turning to dust under the blast of red energy Jared throws at it.

" _ **If you thought a**_ **golem** _ **was enough to kill me, you're not as smart as the others think,**_ " Jared laughs. " _ **I'm gonna' enjoy killing you, slowly.**_ "

Raising a brow, Raven gestures at Constantine.

" **I _did not summon the golem. At any rate, you don't have an advantage this time. I must admit, you recovered from that faster than I'd thought you would, but we're not on even footing now. No imbalance of a mental assault throwing me off at the moment, and I'm not draining myself keeping people from killing each other, a significant difference from yesterday. Another is that she is likewise unoccupied,"_**  she says with a nod at the meta. ** _"Jinx, a hand, if you would_** _ **?**_ "

Jinx cracks her knuckles in response, pink light sparking from her hands as she does.

"Gladly."

She brings her hands together in a ringing clap, a torrent of emerald flames launching forth.

As the column reaches her brother, Raven sinks into the ground and rises at his side.

The wall of red he quickly erects shimmers under the force of Jinx's magic, the cement steaming as the fire parts.

A feral grin on her face, Raven points at Jared's side and for a brief moment, the Mark of Skaath shines brightly on her forehead.

She snarls while thrusting her hands out, her magic rippling through the air between them.

Waves of pure obsidian leave her fingertips when the spell is uttered, and Raven feels a rush of adrenaline when the flames mix.

A curse sounds from Jared as he swings his arms in an arc, the shield expanding into a cone that covers him from the rising vortex of sickly green and black flames.

Jinx's eyes widen as the fires mix, a strange tugging sensation forming in her mind.

Ice seems to slip through her blood, drawing a shiver from her.

Just as she notices the strange phenomenon and it almost becomes comfortable, it vanishes and her fire brightens, more power pouring into the flames without any thought on her part.

Raven sends a worried glance at her fiancé, a small cloud of rosy smoke rising from Jinx's hands.

A grunting sound brings her attention back to her brother, who is slowly being pushed along the road, his soul-self shimmering around him.

" _ **You won't get to me this easily,**_ **sis** ," he mocks in a noticeably strained voice.

Her retort is interrupted as he sinks into the ground, the fire crushing in on the now-empty air and detonating in a corona of black.

Both women cut the flames off, a distinctive  _hum_  filling the air in the ensuing silence.

Raven's senses expand, every ounce of her awareness searching for Jared.

When she finds him, her heart skips a beat and she leaps through a portal that forms the next second.

A shadow with no source appears behind Jinx, pure instinct sending the meta into a roll forward.

Just as Jared comes up to swing a massive fist at where her head had been, Raven materializes mid-motion through her own portal.

The man hisses in pain when she collides, her fist releasing a pulse of obsidian as it connects with his throat.

His body leaves the ground from the impact, several light posts snapping in the path of his flight.

Jinx comes up from her roll balanced on the balls of her feet, her eyes glowing pure pink along with her thrusting hand.

When the arm jerks to a stop, a triangle of light continues on, slamming into the falling demi-demon's chest and sending him tumbling end-over-end along the cement.

When Jared finally comes to a stop, his torso covered in blood and jagged chunks of road, Raven materializes overtop of him.

His eyes widen when he finds her own to be slits of pure darkness, her teeth bared in a very animal display.

Before he can rise or teleport away, her hand slams down into his shoulder, releasing a sickening  _crunch_.

White-hot agony ripples through his large body, a pained hiss escaping him.

Pain blinding his vision for a moment, he doesn't notice the soul-self mummifying his entire body until it's completed forming, cinching his entire body tightly together.

" _ **No chances this time,**_ " Raven intones, her eyes returning to a much less frightening red.

" _ **Ugh… I'm stronger than you! I can break free,**_ " he snarls, his body jerking around as he tries to snap the coating.

Raven says nothing in response, a smirk tugging at her lips as he flounders around in her hold.

By the time Jinx and Constantine both make their way down the road to them, Jared gives a roar and gives up.

" _ **Why can't I break free? I almost killed you yesterday!**_ "

As soon as he asks the question, he notices the Mark on her forehead, glowing brightly enough to cast sinister shadows on her face.

" _ **Ohh. Is big sis fighting dirty?**_ " he sneers.

Raven shakes her head in response, the symbol vanishing while her eyes dim somewhat.

" _ **Hellfire doesn't agree with my humane side, it seems.**_ "

"I'd keep that in check, were I you," Constantine muses around a wet cough. "Bad habit to get into."

Raven raises a brow at the mystic, the expression odd with four eyes.

" _ **It's not usually my first response.**_ "

Her gaze shifts to her brother, becoming much narrower.

" _ **Now, are you going to tell me if you're planning to bring father back easily, or do I have to snap parts of varying importance first?**_ "

Despite the obvious pain on his expression, Jared grins up at her.

" _ **You have a bit of a fixation,**_ **sis** _ **. It's kinda' creepy. Not everything's about Trigon**_ ," he mocks with a laugh. " _ **Even if he**_ **did** _ **need a resurrection, our goal's a bit… lower on the food chain.**_ "

A sudden feeling of dread flashes through Raven, Jinx watching as her entire body tightens like a coiled spring.

" _ **How much**_ **lower**?" she demands.

Clearly enjoying her growing anger, Jared's grin grows ear-to-ear and another laugh sounds, this one rocking his entire body.

" _ **What's that stupid game humans play?**_ **How low can you go** _ **? Just use your imagination,**_ **Raven** _ **.**_ "

Jinx jumps when a  _crack_ explodes through the otherwise silent air.

Flicking her eyes in the direction of the sound, she finds a spiderweb of cracks through the ground nearby.

Noticing it, Jared snickers, his amusement grating against Raven's mind.

" _ **I think you had an accident,**_ **sis** _ **.**_ "

" _ **It was the road or your skull, and you're more useful at the moment**_ ," Raven states around an animalistic growl. " _ **Don't make me change my mind, Wrath**_."

" _ **When the First sets foot here, the barriers are going to come crashing down**_ **so fast** _ **. I mean, sure dad might get out as a side-bonus, and**_ **boy** _ **would he be looking forward to seeing you again, but he ain't our goal.**_ "

"The First what?" Jinx demands, not understanding the sudden, incredibly creepy stillness of her fiancé's body.

" _ **Oh, you'll find out in time. If I were you, I'd jump ship quick, 'cause being**_ **her** _ **pet isn't going to get you any fav- ugh!**_ "

Raven's foot lashes into the side of his face, sending his head snapping violently to the side and into the road.

" _ **I warned you once. She is**_ **not** _ **my pet, and you**_ **won't** _ **disrespect her again,**_ " Raven snarls.

The display of anger is surprising, both to Jinx and to Raven.

" _ **You're actually serious about that? An' here I thought it was just part of that stupid**_ **human** _ **game you play. What's the appeal you an' Lust have with these things? I don't get it!**_ "

" _ **You're not also half-human?**_ " Raven asks, desperate to distract her mind away from the anger coursing through her.

" _ **I'm a demon and proud of it,**_ " he snarls. " _ **You are, too, whether you'd say so out loud or not. You of all people shouldn't give a damn, as long as we don't help the old man come back.**_ "

Something occurs to Jared then, a strange light forming in his gaze as it slides over to Jinx.

From the shift in his smile, the meta gets the distinct impression she's about to be very unhappy, a sentiment that gets stronger when his gaze returns to Raven.

" _ **Y'know, I'm a blunt force kinda' guy. Much more direct and personal. But even though we don't get along too well, I**_ **have** _ **picked up on some of the stuff Greed's always going on about. Negotiations're simpler and waste less energy than fighting, or some shit. How about a, whaddya' call it…? Quid pro quo?**_ "

Raven's eyes narrow on her brother, cursing her curiosity.

" _ **I have you held down and useless, and you've got nothing that I want any part of. Negotiations are best done when you're in a position to give the other party something they want**_ ," Raven quips.

" _ **You're not immortal anymore than the rest of us,**_ " he sneers. " _ **You can only hold me for so long, and when you cave,**_ **I'll** _ **be ready to crush you while you're weak.**_ "

" _ **I could just crush your sternum, piercing your lungs and heart, right now, if you'd prefer. I understand it's a horrible death**_ **,** " Raven offers, the brutality startling Jinx.

" _ **Do it. You'll be taking us down by a single person. Not that big a deal, in the long run.**_ "

" _ **Five of you, two of us. It may be difficult, granted, but not impossibly stacked odds. Add in the mystics of the Justice League, the Titans, and the unaffiliated who have vested interest in keeping Hell and Earth separate, and suddenly your odds are much more dismal.**_ "

Raven's hope that the display of information would wipe the smug expression from her brother's face is quickly destroyed when, instead, his only reaction is a slight waning to his smirk.

" _ **How many of**_ **you** _ **would it take to slaughter them all? If you weren't playing that fake human bullshit to keep them off your back and got serious, I mean.**_ "

" _ **The lot of you aren't an equivalent to Trigon when I defeated him. I'm stronger than I was then. It's simple math**_ ," Raven argues, choosing to ignore the cold sweat breaking out.

" _ **Six of us, two of you, and you'd have no way of knowing who we'd attack, where, and when. How far behind us were you with those rats you'd scared? And that wasn't even us trying to piss you off!**_ "

The cracks in the road expand, returning his smirk to its former smugness.

" _ **Face it. Much as you**_ **hate** _ **the old man, the only way you'd be able to take all of us is if you**_ **were** _ **him. So about that deal. Easy exchange. We stay out of your life, don't mess with any of your friends anymore, and in exchange, you stay out of our way. After that ambitious asshole and you, I'm the oldest, an' I can get them to get in line when I have to. You're much harder to hunt and kill than to just keep a truce with, or so my spine's tellin' me**_."

The retort Jinx expects doesn't come, setting warning bells off in the meta's head.

When she looks to her side, she finds Raven's gaze clouded, her struggle obvious on her usually stoic face.

Raven stares at her brother, the offer one that could potentially save a lot of lives.

Jinx's face flashes to her mind, right along with the faces of her children, sending a pulse of adrenaline through her.

The hesitation lasts for the barest of moments, though, the rest of the offer catching up to her mind in the timespan it takes for Jinx's worry to permeate the air.

Just as she opens her mouth to respond, Constantine steps forward, face contorted in a harsh glare that moves between the demonlings.

"There's no chance I'm lettin' anyone try that. Me an' that geezer go back a long way, and I ain't lettin' him come up here to play around more than he already does. If that means I need to take you both down, I can live with that."

Irritation snaps through Raven, her eyes narrowing on the man.

" _ **This is not the matter that I asked your advice on, Constantine. I can tell my brother to piss off perfectly well without your input.**_ "

Jinx releases a relieved sigh in the midst of her laugh, Constantine's expression switching almost instantly with Jared's.

"I think I might like you, after all," he chuckles before pulling another cigarette free.

" _ **Think on this, Raven. You don't know what you're bringing on yourself!**_ "

Raven's eyes flash obsidian as she kneels down beside his head, a cruel smirk on her lips.

" _ **I'd be inclined to agree to your deal if you weren't attempting to raise Hell, in a literal sense. But I'm afraid I'll be declining,**_ **Wrath** _ **. I won't need the charity of you staying away from my friends, when I can so easily make it a fatal mistake for all who attempt to harm them, instead.**_ "

Jared laughs despite the palpable fear emanating from him, red lenses meeting black.

" _ **You can't be with all of them, all the time. You can't even be with the meta 24/7. You could at least save them pain until after the demons arrive**_ ," he snarls.

Raven's grin turns feral, suddenly sharp teeth revealing themselves.

Her dress billows around her feet, growing and turning to black smoke on the ground around them.

The smoke takes on a vaguely tentacle-like form, splitting to become a slithering wave that inches its way towards the helpless demonling.

His eyes widen as the smoke collects around his neck, the form billowing and shifting in front of his eyes.

And then it condenses, and he grunts as his body is lifted from the ground, his entire weight resting on his gripped throat…  
 ************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

"The waves" is referring to synchronicity waves. John Constantine travels on said waves which, putting into layman's terms, means he tends to make his own good luck as well as be led instinctively to the right places at the right times. Such as meeting the perfect person for stopping an apocalypse when it's happening.

While he's a bit OP, I've always enjoyed the character of John Constantine. That I planned to involve the First of the Fallen in the story eventually gave me a perfect excuse to use him.

I'm greatly enjoying writing Raven's more demonic personality traits. It makes for an entertaining contrast, both for myself, and hopefully all of you, as well. As always, feel free to tell me what you all think, be they positive or negative thoughts. See you all next time!


	42. Reverse

# XLI. Reverse

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

" _ **Your confidence isn't earned,**_ **Wrath** ," Raven muses.

He grunts at the pressure on his windpipe, red eyes narrowed to slits as they focus on her.

Raven shivers at the anger permeating the air, fear mixing itself in to make a disturbingly alluring draw to her senses.

Something presses on her mind, the edges of her vision dimming as it pushes on her mental defenses.

Her eyes brighten, and she finds a vague red haze flowing from her brother to her.

" _ **I swear on the Ninth Circle that I'll kill you,**_ " Jared snarls, his desire to keep her attention off the attempted manipulation apparent.

" _ **I'm not overly concerned. You're not exactly in a position to scare me, and I'm going to be putting things into effect so none of you will be able to get in my mind again once this is over.**_ "

Jared grunts as the smoky tentacle squeezes, the muscles in his large neck creaking under the pressure.

When it loosens slightly, he tries to match his sister's expression despite the pain that coats it.

" _ **Maybe you can do that. I don't know. But even if you can,**_ **she** _ **can't, and I promise you that my brothers are going to use that**_ ," Jared snickers with a nod at Jinx. " _ **I heard from the vampire that his old man did a serious number on her already.**_ "

Jinx's eyes widen, her heart squeezing at the threat.

For her part, Raven's vision dims further as burning anger pulses through her, her defenses weakening somewhat as a result.

His grin grows when he notices, a snort sounding despite his lack of oxygen.

" _ **Lust in particular's gonna' have a field day. He gets off on makin' people do all**_ **kinds** _ **of things to make him happy. Not into it, myself, but he said that when he was in your head,**_ **Raven** _ **, he started thinking of all**_ **sorts** _ **of fun things to do**_."

Raven's eyes turn black, the soul-self around him crushing inward and drawing an agonized rasp from her brother.

" _ **You're choosing to have me kill you, with a death more painful than necessary. Not the smartest decision.**_ "

" _ **Ha! I'm proving a point. You can act all you want, but no matter how much power you've got, you're not going to kill me. You're too into playing**_ **human,** _ **and we both know that when this is over, I'm walking away**_ **.** "

Raven floats across the ground, her muscles rippling as clawed hands tense into fists.

When she reaches Jared, the world seems to darken around them, all light absorbed by the growing black shroud around her body.

" _ **Do not assume you know me,**_ **Wrath** _ **. He clearly had other, more agreeable options, and yet I was still chosen as the Gem of Skaath despite fighting him every step of the way. I'm more human, and just as proud of it as you are of being his spawn, but do not mistake that for being weak. It is the reason I could defeat him, and I can certainly destroy you**_ ," she hisses.

" _ **Using**_ **His** _ **powers that his blood gave to you**_ ," Jared snarls as his anger builds. " _ **You're nothing without that piece of you that you hate so much. How many people have you killed,**_ **Raven** _ **? I'm betting nowhere near as many as the rest of us separately. You even defeated the old man with the nagging realization that he probably isn't really dead. You don't have the stomach to kill me, so drop this sickening charade that you do!**_ "

Raven's fists clench, blood rising from where talons meet skin.

Her body becomes unnaturally still, a sphere of darkness rising around the siblings that causes Jinx's heart to squeeze in an emotion she doesn't fully understand.

" _ **I was intending to send you back with a warning to the others. To tell them that the next time I as much as got a hint of any of you anywhere near the people I love, I'll kill you. Brutally. If that didn't get the point across, I would make it worse each time. Now, though, I'm inclined to start early and send your skull back with a written note, instead**_ ," Raven intones.

Jared shivers at the cold, emotionless tone that suddenly appears in her echoing voice.

His fear pumps into the air around them, Raven's eyes brightening even further at the sensation.

In his fear, his own defenses fall, the strange feeling of invasion in his mind entirely unnoticed.

Suddenly his fear vanishes, a sneer curling his lips.

" _ **All talk. Your**_ **help** _ **doesn't mean anything, and even if the meta's above those, you're still basically on your own,**_ **Raven** _ **. You can only fight for so long, and even if you**_ **are** _ **the strongest, earth-side, anyway, five of us together will have that gem in your forehead mounted on a wall a few minutes from when the fight starts. It'd be all that was left of you.**_ "

Raven's brow rises at the bravado, noticing a slight haze between their bodies once more.

This time, however, she finds it to be pure obsidian instead of Jared's red, and flowing in the opposite direction.

Eyes narrowing in concentration, she finds a dull throbbing sensation in the depths of her mind.

Her realization is sidetracked by Jared, her attempts to pull the power away from him and back into herself distracted easily.

" ** _there's_ our _help, too. More useful than yours, if just as sickeningly human. Except the vampire, but he's almost as bad regardless. I think he'd bring his whole Church down on you if it meant he could have you in iron chains in his bed for both of your longer-than-human lifetimes. Wotan and the other magicians would froth at the mouth at the thought of stealing your power for themselves, too. You're_ very  _outnumbered,_ Raven**," he mocks with a sneer.

" _ **I wonder… if I let you go, would they kill you over telling me all this?**_ " Raven muses with a copy of his expression.

He pales, a sickly cast appearing on his skin as he thinks on it.

" _ **I thought as much**_ ," his sister laughs. " _ **I know where you're keeping your tools, I know how many of you there are, and I know now that I can find the others. Between Snow and you, at least when you feel a false sense of superiority, it's been a very informative night.**_ "

A thought occurs to him and his expression twists in a mix of rage and horror, a visible aura of red shining off his body.

" _ **You**_ **bitch** _ **!**_ "

She smirks in response, the sudden strain on her soul-self not showing in her expression at all.

" _ **I'm going to kill you! Get the fuck out of my head!**_ "

Jinx stares in shock at Raven, who simply meets his stare with the stoic mask the meta had thought abandoned after the last year.

Unlike Jared, though, she can see a gleam of horror in her fiancé's eyes, confirming her earlier suspicions without doubt.

What scares Jinx more than Raven's power is that Raven isn't in full control of it, both instances this night seeming entirely subconscious.

Jared begins thrashing around in the soul-self cage, the pain in his neck forgotten in the volume of his snarls and screams.

At the meta's side, Constantine snorts and pulls a new cigarette free, his amusement palpable in the air.

"Demons," he mutters before pulling a long drag on the cigarette.

Jinx's reply is cut off by a sudden explosion of red light, bringing her attention back to the scene before her.

Jared lashes out with his soul-self, sending a limb of red to swipe for his dodging sister.

She gives nothing away as she dances out of each attack, her soul-self snapping his psychic limbs whenever it gets too close.

Despite her cold facade, Jared notices the sweat breaking out on Raven's face from more than the effort of avoiding him, a sneer curling his lips.

His anger rises like a physical force around him, his energy hammering away at her mummifying hold while he continues distracting her.

His eyes flash red, the energy in the air her only warning as the newest limb vanishes.

She dives away instantly, the blast of red energy ripping into existence at the same moment.

Steam rises from the melted ground where she'd stood, her eyes widening as a red smoke billows upward from his eyes

Something  _snaps_ , and Jared vanishes into the ground from the suddenly loose binding.

Raven whirls around, a wall of black taking form just as a massive fist swings at the back of her head.

" _ **You've brought wrath down on yourself, Raven, and it will be the last thing you do**_!" he screams.

His fists begin slamming into the shield, the wall of black vibrating under each strike.

Raven finds herself sliding along the road, each of his punches sending her slightly further back.

Finally, white cracks begin to form in her shield, and he releases a roar that causes the ground to shake.

Red fills her vision, and she grunts while the Eldritch magic rips away at her defense.

Feeling the barrier falling, she immediately sinks into a portal at her feet.

By the time she rises to swing her fist at the back of his skull, he's matched her movements.

His fist slams into her back, sending her crashing into the road and bouncing forward.

" _ **I'm going to kill you, then your mate, and then I'm going to hunt for that human with you when he runs away. Then I'll start in on that Titans group of yours. I swear on the Circles that I'm going to slaughter each and every last one of you**_!" he screams after her.

She comes to a brutal stop when she rams into the wall of a building, bricks crumbling to dust around her.

The ensuing pain is much less than she expects, and when he appears to punch her again, he finds her on her feet and almost steady.

His fist rushes by her face, her body spinning around the attack.

At the same time he realizes his mistake, she leaps onto his back, a steely hand crushing his throat.

" _ **Azarath Metrion**_ **Zinthos** _ **!**_ "

Darkness swallows the pair, Jared's body crashing to the road under the sudden weight.

Her soul-self compresses around them, until his body is covered head-to-toe in it beneath her.

" _ **You should've run when you had the chance.**_ "

His struggles are futile, even as he begins releasing magic into her hold, her own anger fueling her.

" _ **You've taught me that I'm fallible to what you seem to think I represent, the same as you. That was a mistake to think otherwise, and I'm glad it wasn't with someone better at tactics. It could've been fatal. So thank you,**_ **Jared** _ **, for this lesson.**_ "

He goes still as his vision turns black, her power pressing in on him to strain bones and muscle.

" _ **But you should also have figured something out before starting this fight. When you first got away. If I really**_ **am** _ **Pride, it would be natural that I'd be stronger than all of you. The ideas you all represent are borne from what I represent. That, too, was a fatal error, and you**_ **won't** _ **be coming from it knowing better in the future.**_ "

Screaming sounds from within the black coffin, audible  _snap_ s and  _crack_ s sounding as his body begins breaking apart under the pressure.

Feeling a disturbing emotion rising in her at the sounds, she snaps her fingers.

In an instant, it presses into itself, and after the span of three seconds it vanishes entirely.

Jared stares with unseeing eyes at the air in its wake, his head at an angle not quite right.

She gazes at his body, her skin turning grey once more as a revolting sensation crosses through her body.

Even when the others join her side, Raven's eyes remain glued to his body.

"It wasn't going to end another way," Jinx offers.

Her voice breaks Raven from her introspection, a brow rising in response.

"It could have, but I won't be mourning his death anytime soon."

Jinx hesitates, biting her lip as she searches her lover's expression.

"Wasn't he your brother?" Constantine asks in a completely neutral voice.

"And Trigon was my father. I killed him all the same, as I will the others. And it seems to be mutual."

Constantine nods, taking in the shattered wall behind her.

"Didn't think your body was as strong as his was," he muses.

Raven winces, casting her own gaze at the damage.

"It isn't. I should've been out of it for longer than I was…"

"Glad you weren't," Jinx offers, concern shining her expression.

"As am I," Raven sighs.

Feeling the emotions rolling from her lover, Raven pulls her into a tight hug.

"I'm fine, Jinx. Bruised and angry, but fine," she swears.

The meta nods in agreement, her tension slipping away slowly.

"For now," Constantine grunts. "As soon as that bastard gets to the pit, word's gonna' get out. They'll be coming for you."

"Not necessarily. There's no telling if they can actually communicate across the divide, and even if that were the case, I get the impression they're only slightly more tolerant of each other than they are me. I don't think they'll be looking for revenge immediately, if they're smart."

"So you've got some time. When they hear, even if they don't come, they'll make sure the info you've got's outdated by the time you can use it."

Raven goes still, the red specks in her eyes glowing brighter for a moment.

"Then I won't give them a chance for it."

Constantine snorts in response, his eyes narrowing on the demonling.

"The First of the Fallen isn't a creature to take lightly. I don't know what timeframe you're thinking of, but it'd better be  _soon_ , or this is going to get really ugly really quickly."

Jinx's eyes widen in shock as her mouth goes dry.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on!  _That's_ who the First is!? The damn devil!?"

Raven winces at the shrilled question in her ear, making Constantine's smirk grow.

"I have the information I need. I'm finishing this, tonight," Raven swears.

"Apparently not, or I wouldn't be here," he argues.

"They're planning to open the Hellmouth. That's not just some portal. What has the keys to the gate?"

A thought occurs to Constantine that makes him chuckle.

"Oh, yeah. Now that I think about it, this isn't somethin' that they can do. You, either. Last I heard, Morpheus has the keys."

The words are foreign to Raven for a moment as her mind works on piecing them together, and when she does, her own lips turn upward.

"Well then, that gives me a bigger timeframe, doesn't it?"

"Don't get cocky," Constantine warns. "If they find a way to rip a hole into his house, they  _might_  be able to slip it from him and get out before they get killed. I'd normally say that for just five half-demons, some decent magicians, and some trinkets, it'd be impossible to get around an Endless for even a few seconds, but… they've got a  _lot_  of magic stored in all that they've stolen, from what I gathered. It might be enough to get that blood in all of you to work for them. Might give them  _just enough_  of a chance to get it done."

Raven's mirth dies, leaving an acrid taste in her mouth.

"Umm… I'm feelin' like an idiot. What the hell's an Endless?" Jinx asks with a powerful blush coloring her cheeks.

Raven's frown is one of thought rather than irritation, but the meta takes longer than she expects to pick up on the difference.

"They're… difficult to put into words. They're a step above the gods that roam this planet and the various dimensions, but they aren't quite  _gods_  per se…"

"Just think of them as an abstract idea," Constantine offers. "Most do. Even playing around with demons and angels, I don't quite get what they actually are."

"And Morpheus is…? Like, the old Greek guy that worked with people dreaming?" Jinx asks while her blush fades.

"It's one of his forms," Raven agrees. "But it  _is_ possible that they could sneak around him, even in the Dreaming, if they have as much built-up magic as I think they do. So the plan's simple. Kill them, remove the objects of power they hold if I can't, and get Morpheus's attention and let him know to be prepared. If he's expecting them, even if they manage to beat me, they won't be able to win…"  
 ********************

 _Author's Notes_ :

So Jared's dead. One down, five to go. I'm betting the rest won't be as "easy," such as this was, for Raven, especially if they know she's hunting them. I hope you're all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. Be sure to give me your thoughts, positive or negative, and I'll see you all next time!


	43. Oblivion

# XLII. Oblivion

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"You'll have as much luck getting to Morpheus as they will," Constantine points out.

"Actually, how  _would_  you get to him? I mean, I get that you're really smart, Rae, but I don't get how you even know about the guy. You, either," Jinx adds with a pointed finger at Constantine.

"It wouldn't be easy, for sure. Few would be stupid enough to try it, the way I think they'll have to if they want to get their hands on the keys. I won't need to go that route," Raven responds.

"You aren't just gonna' sleep and suddenly wake up there. It don't work that way," Constantine argues. "As for how I know about it, I've been in situations before that 'ave given me an opportunity, of sorts. Never met them or anythin', but I've figured out they're there."

"Demons have a more in-depth knowledge of the arcane parts of reality than humans. While I avoid being one where I can, I've dealt with a few, and have gotten a number of books and stories out of them," Raven adds.

"Which goes to my point. They're more informed about this than you. Hell, if I've heard right, you've been chasing their tails for a year now, and you're only figuring things out in the last few days. They're going to be ahead of you here, too. And they're definitely not going to be as easy to find as you think."

"Jared tracked me down using my aura. Given his explanation, it's similar to the rest of them. As I now understand what his aura felt like, I can search for the others the way he did me."

Constantine frowns, flicking his latest cigarette into the darkness.

Jinx grimaces as it lands on Jared's cheek, the now-brown skin burning under the embers.

Noticing her lover's emotions, Raven points at her dead brother, and darkness envelopes his body.

The next moment, his corpse is gone, Raven's eyes never leaving Constantine's.

"They'll know that. They aren't stupid, if they've been going like they have for so long without gettin' caught. I almost guarantee that just the same way you're thinking of how to hide yourself, they'll know how to keep outta' your sights until they've got a claw in your throat."

"Especially when they figure out he's dead," Jinx adds with a frown. "I hate ta' say it, Rae, but I don't think we're going to be ending this as fast as we should. We don't have any idea where to start looking for them. The Church's got the artifacts, but I doubt they'll know where their bosses are."

"No killing two birds with one stone, then," Raven muses. "If it was easy, this would've ended months ago."

"They're lookin' to open the Hellmouth. That's not some random hole in the ground. There'll be talk. Word'll be going around to all kinds of circles, especially now that you outright told so many groups what's happening."

"So we're going hunting for rumors? Not my idea of a good start, but it's better than when we've been flopping around in the dark hoping a lead would find us. The Oblivion would be a good place to look."

Raven quirks a brow at the meta, a slight smirk on her lips.

"What? It's got the right kind of people," she mutters defensively, a blush forming.

"You're right. I'm just wondering if they'll allow you inside," Raven responds.

The demonling's amusement is lost on Constantine, even while the meta's face turns dark red.

"It wasn't  _that_  bad!"

Raven chooses not to answer, a chuckle sounding at the meta's fidgeting motions.

"Only one way to find out. That is a good place to start."

Constantine's expression darkens, the women practically seeing his inner struggle.

Finally, he gives a grunt and meets Raven's gaze.

"When you're done there, head to Los Angeles. There's a piano bar called the Lux… If the Oblivion doesn't give you any good leads, you're almost guaranteed to find somethin' there."

"More help than I expected. I'll keep that in mind," Raven answers with a grateful nod.

"Yeah, don't thank me. You'd best hurry. And just tread carefully, if you step foot in that place. Especially you," he adds with a glance at Jinx.

Something about the warning causes Jinx's heart to speed up, his expression offering her no reassurances.

With a nod, he starts walking down the road.

Before either woman can further question him about the Lux, he seems to vanish, the darkness of the night utterly swallowing him.

"Nice guy," Jinx huffs.

"I'd take him over Etrigan, if we ever needed to work with mystics from the League," Raven offers.

"Well, yeah, obviously, but still… Ah, well, doesn't matter."

Jinx turns her attention back to Raven, concern once more shining in her expression.

"So are you okay?  _Really_ okay?"

"Jinx, I told you-"

"Yeah, I get it. No love lost between you and any of them. But you just tore his ass apart. You've gone a long way to avoid casualties if you could, even working under Steel where you could do it legally."

Her hand rests on Raven's shoulder, the meta refusing to let her break eye contact.

"If you're okay, then I'm glad and I'll shut up. But don't pretend to be fine over that, Rae. It ain't good for you."

Raven releases a sigh, her entire body relaxing at Jinx's touch.

"I'm fine, Jinx, I promise. There is no room for mercy with demons. He made it clear he was more demon than human, and he made threats I couldn't allow to happen. If I didn't do it, we'd both end up killed. So while I don't like the idea of killing, my family is an exception to my stance I'm more than willing to make."

Jinx stares into her gaze for a moment longer before nodding in acceptance, though her hand doesn't leave the demonling's shoulder.

"Alright. So, Gotham it is… We makin' a quick trip to their Church while we're there, or is it too obvious?"

"It's possible they'll use it. I don't think they'll have them there now, though. It is the most obvious, but it is also the most heavily fortified… They will use it once word gets out, and they will act quickly. They're a vast organization, and have many places to hide their trinkets."

"So we give them some time? Gotta' say, not in love with the idea, after how much time they already have on their side," " Jinx mumbles.

"It would take us hours to search, even with my teleportation. Better to wait for them to bring everything together for us."

Nodding, Jinx presses herself to Raven's side.

"Well, let's get goin', then. If we can't get them, best to find your brothers."

Darkness envelops them once again, though it is far more comfortable than their escape had been.

When they come to rest, they find themselves in front of an unassuming alleyway.

A set of concrete stairs drops into the ground, a small neon sign similar to the many others filling the city hanging above as the only indication it exists.

Jinx's senses come alive as they descend the stairs.

Magic pulsates through the air, becoming stronger with each step they take.

They finally come to a stop after what seems like an eternity, a plain door standing before them.

An arcane symbol glows on the wood, casting an unnatural light through the darkness.

Raven stares at the sigil and wonders at its meaning, the language one she'd never seen before or since discovering the Oblivion Bar.

It's a strange place, trapped in its own pocket dimension and only accessible to magicians.

Those magicians who found it, though, were many in number, and she'd understood that even recluses such as Doctor Fate and Etrigan enjoyed the company within on occasion.

If a normal human happened upon the door, they'd be greatly confused to find the lack of knob on top of the door, though Raven had heard that the symbol served as an illusion to make it seem nothing more than a dead end under some stairs, to most.

Wind picks up in the stairway, throwing Raven's hair around in its wake.

Her eyes flash white while her hands rest against the surprisingly cold wood.

" _Claustra ingeriorem, ita ut vadas!_ "

The symbol flashes brilliantly, and when their vision returns, the door is open.

As soon as the women pass through, it slips silently closed once more to lock them in.

The various conversations around the bar quiet somewhat as the women move further in.

Raven feels her pulse race as gazes lock on them.

The edges of her vision darken, and she frowns when tightening her mental barriers doesn't shove the ugly emotions down.

With their attentions on the inhabitants of the room, neither woman notices how much brighter the red becomes in Raven's eyes as they move towards the bar.

Looking up at the shift in volume, the man behind the counter suddenly grins at the approaching women.

"Well, hello there," he says in greeting. "Never got to thank ya' for paying off the damage."

At Jinx's sudden, brilliant blush, Raven snickers despite the strange anger rushing through her.

"It was Thanagarian booze and I was having an off day. C'mon," the meta complains with a glare at her laughing fiancé's back.

"Well, no harm, no foul. It was paid off fast enough," the bartender laughs. "And it pushed me to set up some better wards. Haven't had any tech blow up since."

Jinx curses under her breath, glaring harder at Raven.

"That wasn't all on me," she defends.

"Hence why I paid it off," Raven quips.

Jinx frowns at the slight  _off_ ness to her voice, but finds herself interrupted before she can inquire about it.

"So, business or pleasure tonight, ladies? Doesn't seem to be any trouble in paradise, this time 'round."

The statement causes Raven's expression to darken even further, though he doesn't react to the shift.

"Unfortunately, the part about trouble in paradise is not true. I'm looking for information. Don't care which side it comes from, and I'll pay for what I can get."

The hair on Raven's neck rises as a great deal of attention focuses back on her, the previously returning conversation dying again.

Pretending not to notice the suddenly ratcheting tension, the bartender gives her a nod, though his grin shrinks a bit.

"Got plenty of that to go around, here, dependin' on the pay and what you're lookin' for. Anything in particular?"

"Five people and a location. Information on any of it will help, and chances are good I can pay whatever cost it brings about."

"'cept souls," Jinx interrupts with a growing glare. "Not that this is the place for that kinda' shit, but still, needs to be said."

"Except my soul," Raven agrees with a light blush at his returned grin.

"She's got you whipped somethin' fierce."

"Can't complain. Better than the alternative," Raven muses. "But most other prices are on the table."

"You're gonna' need to be more specific what you're lookin' for. What we're workin' with is a pretty broad range."

Raven considers her options, the realization that she hadn't prepared a way to not outright say what she is looking for occurring to her just then.

With a sigh, she steels herself for the coming reaction.

"People are trying to open the Hellmouth. I'm looking for anything on where they are, or where  _it_  is, and I don't have time to play games."

The room goes utterly silent, Raven's body tensing up at the emotions suddenly flooding the air and slipping past her defenses.

Her barriers slam even more tightly in place as Jinx presses into her back, staying between her and all of the glaring patrons.

The bartender's grin is gone, his expression hard.

"News to me. Where you hear somethin' like that?"

"When I made the six people planning it drop to five," Raven says, her voice seeming to echo in the silent air. "If people will know more about the whole thing, they'd be more likely to be here than anywhere else in the dimension."

"You tryin' to speed things up or slow 'em down?" a voice snarks from a nearby table.

"There's not going to be any  _trying_. I'm  _going_  to stop it from happening," Raven snaps through grit teeth.

Raven turns from the bartender, sending a cool glance around the room.

She finds a variety of emotions meeting her, from suspicion and hate to what seems to be downright amusement on some.

The amusement angers her more than the rest, and she clenches her hand hard to fight the burn forming in her forehead.

"Like I said, I don't have a lot of time, and I really don't care. Good information's why I came here. If nobody knows anything, then it's your loss on not keeping your ear to the ground enough, which I certainly can't speak down on given how recently we've figured it out."

Her eyes turn almost entirely red then, and several people rise from their seats as the air grows colder.

"If any of you  _do_ know something, though, make no mistake. If you don't tell me, or at least  _sell me_  what you know, you will be screwing yourselves just as much as me. No need to be stupid here."

"I'd say you comin' in here actin' tough for a damn halfbreed and tryin' to scare information up is pretty stupid," a woman across the room muses with a laugh.

The red in Raven's eyes glows in the gloom of the bar, Jinx's body giving off pink sparks in concern.

The transition of her lover's mood sends the meta's heart racing, and her eyes widen at the small nexus of black smoke collecting at Raven's feet.

"Make no mistakes here. Most of you seem to know who I am, or at least have an idea. Me being half-blooded means nothing for what I'm capable of."

"Trust me, people, she's been having a  _bad_  day. You don't want to push those buttons," Jinx adds while fighting off the urge to grab the demonling by the shoulders and shake her.

"Did you really come in here to start a fight? Because I'm not havin' that shit in my bar," the bartender growls.

Sense leaks into Raven's mind, and she sends her senses outward.

Her frown deepens when she finds nothing that would affect her psyche in the room.

She does, however, feel something ugly and worringly familiar in the depths of her own mind.

The realization is like cold water being dumped on her, and the anger cools in the same instant.

"I respect the neutral ground this dimension stands as, and would not do anything stupid to risk myself or anything in the universe at large. I came here with an unfortunate lack of thought into how to present this information, but as Jinx said, I'm having an off day."

Her eyes move across the room once again, her eyes almost entirely red now while her dress shifts as though alive around her ankles, despite the lack of anger.

"However,  _when_ I stop this from happening, if I find out that a single person in this bar is, or was, helping the Sons of Trigon in their game, regardless of where they fall in alignment or power, I assure you that I will give them the same end that's in store for those five. I'll even do it right in here, if said metaphorical magician were cowardly enough to fall back on this as a safeguard, on this neutral zone, if need be. Nobody benefits from Hell rising, and even the wards on this bar wouldn't stop me if the person was acting to aid such an event."

The gloom vanishes from the room at the same time her gaze returns to being indigo, her dress becoming still once more.

"I assure you that what I just showed you was not theatrics, if there is any doubt to those who don't know who,  _what_ , I am. I can back my threat up, as heavy-handed as it was. As I said at the start, I'm willing to pay for what you know. Where are any of the Sons of Trigon, or where is the Hellmouth? If nobody has anything in answer to these queries, then I have elsewhere to be, and it will be your loss on a substantial trade."

"Not the smartest way of askin' for info. You should've played your cards closer to the vest," the bartender grumbles.

"Normally, I would not have made a point of being rude about this. Normally, there isn't a group threatening the universe at large. Subtlety isn't in the agenda tonight. If people here want to help, great, there're groups in motion already that they can help, and if no information's available, I'll move on to my next destination where I likely  _can_  get information. So, any takers?"

Nobody responds save for glares, though a few patrons seem to be readying for a fight.

Still more seem queasy, making Raven feel guilty for breaking potentially devastating news in such a harsh way.

She focuses on the glares to ease her conscience, a nod turning her head.

"Your loss," Jinx sighs.

"A shame," Raven agrees.

They make their way to the door, Jinx heading out first.

"Take my warning to heart, ladies and gentlemen. If you're abstaining or planning on helping fight this, then I apologize for ruining your evening, however, I will offer not a single moment of mercy to any aiming to end this universe as we know it."

The door slips closed behind Raven, her words echoing in the still-silent bar…  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Claustra- Latin: "Barriers"

ingeriorem- Latin: "lower"

ita- Latin: "so"

ut- Latin: "we may"

vadas- Latin: "be merry".

I've never re-written a chapter as much as I have this one. I went through a good three shifts to the entire tone of the scene before I decided to continue Raven's more demonic behavior traits. Also, I already have the idea written for the story of their first trip to the bar, and it's a far lighter story. The good news is that even when this story's over, I've got quite a few ideas to write out inside-stories to kill any future boredom.

This chapter, while frustrating, was also pretty fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. I can honestly say the next chapter is one that I've been looking most forward to writing since I started this story, so I'm hoping it turns out as well as I think it will.

As always, be sure to leave your thoughts, positive or negative, and I'll see you all next time!


	44. Kismet

# XLIII. Kismet

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

As soon as they're away from the alley, Jinx's attention moves away from potential assailants following them out of the bar to her lover.

Raven's eyes are narrowed as she stalks down the empty road, the red flecks in her eyes almost overpowering the purple.

"Came off a little strong, Rae," she muses, her gaze looking for any reaction.

"Yes, I did. Something is wrong. I do not yet know what."

"You gonna' be okay to go to this other place? Because we can't go around pissing so many people off if we want info."

"I know. We need to find where this Lux club is, anyway. Hopefully meditation in the meantime will correct whatever is throwing me off."

For a moment, Jinx remains silent as she keeps a steady gaze on the demonling.

How bright the red specks in Raven's eyes are is what sends her mind to a possible explanation.

"It could be from killing Wrath," she finally states.

"I already stated-"

"That you don't feel bad about killing someone on Trigon's side. I get it," Jinx interrupts with a huff of annoyance that silences the empath. "But you didn't  _just_  kill your brother, Raven. You also killed someone with demon in them."

"Were that not the case… never mind," Raven cuts herself off with a blush. "I apologize. You don't deserve ire. You were saying?"

"You killed Trigon, and then you got his powers, right?"

"Not… exactly. I did gain some foresight, and my abilities in general became stronger, but there are things he could do that I can't. Not that I would if I were able, mind you, but-"

"And you just killed Jared. Who was embodied anger, which fueled his powers, right?"

Raven frowns in thought, a slight  _hum_ sounding at the back of her throat.

"That is certainly true…"

"It'd be one thing if he was just some berserk, angry guy. But if his powers were actually connected to anger, and the mojo shifted to you when you killed him-"

"Then in a sense, I would be absorbing his personality itself. At least, the elements that fueled his strength and empathic ability," Raven concludes.

"Which means quick to anger and a little short on thinking things through, maybe?" Jinx muses.

"Certainly a fair assumption given how well that went."

Nodding, Jinx presses into Raven's side.

"Give us a jump to the house. You'll meditate, and I'll have Giz look up this club."

Her statement brokers no argument, and with a sigh, Raven lets her soul-self wrap around them.

When they're in the bedroom, Raven takes a seat in the air, her eyes slipping closed immediately.

As she quietly chants her mantra, Jinx moves out of the room and impatiently waits for Gizmo to answer her call.

"How're things goin' on your end?" Gizmo says in greeting.

"Hey to you, too. We found a ton of stuff out. The Church of Blood's drowning in this. Need you to look up someplace for me."

"I'll send that around. Coordinating all these people's a serious pain in my ass, so maybe they'll be able to pick their noses on their own if I give them a hard target," he grouses. "And what's the place?"

"Some place called the Lux. It's a bar in LA."

Clicking sounds in the background, Gizmo  _hmm_ ing in reply.

"This a dinner date or a lead?" he asks after a few seconds of silence.

"The second one. Maybe the first if the place doesn't suck and Rae doesn't end up getting us blown up."

"Whoa, what? How would that happen?"

"Long story. Let's just say that if I can keep Raven from getting any more like her family, it'll probably mean a happy Jinx."

Gizmo whistles, causing a sigh of irritation to slip from the meta.

"How many'd she kill?"

"Just one. The one that attacked before."

"Not seein' the problem, but I'm smart enough to guess there is one somewhere in there."

"Anger and Raven don't mix well," Jinx sighs. "We almost had a damn bar fight started in the Oblivion."

"Yeah, that'd be bad. Though bad's relative, right now, what with Hell on Earth an' all. Get 'er under control before you go to this place. The legal fees would bury you."

"You found it?" Jinx asks with much less irritation.

"Yeah, I found it. Really swanky, private club. Looks like the kinda' place you're gonna' hate. Hope one of your dresses survived," he adds with a snicker.

"Great. Well, maybe that'll mean there'll be less people likely to set her off."

"Here's hopin'. Though pissin' off some posh-ass club owner probably can't make Steel any more pissed at you guys."

"So it doesn't set off your  _freaky_  radar?" Jinx ponders with a frown.

"Not really, but their site's pretty sparse. Where'd you hear about the place?"

"Constantine. Bit of an ass, but if he thinks we'll find something there, he probably ain't wrong."

"Well, good luck with that. If it comes down to it, I'm sure you can figure out  _somethin_ ' that'll calm Raven down. Never failed before."

"Yeah… Send me their address. I'll text you the info we've got to send on to everyone else."

"Sounds good," he replies before a  _click_  sounds.

By the time Jinx gets back into the bedroom, the messages are sent.

She finds Raven floating where she left her, grey skin replaced by brilliant scarlet.

In a bubble around her, red markings glow and pulsate through the air.

Disturbingly, Raven's top two eyes lock on her as soon as she enters while her other eyes remain closed, something the meta hadn't seen before.

The sensation of their gaze on her is unpleasant, and despite their lack of pupils, she feels them following her as she moves further into the room until she sits on the bed.

The sensation quickly fades, however, as the symbols abruptly vanish.

The red cast of her skin dims and slowly turns back to her natural color, and as they do, the eyes seem to melt out of existence.

Finally, Raven's body lowers to the floor, and her eyes open when she releases a sigh of relief.

Jinx feels concern forming when she meets red lenses, but the color bleeds away to leave pure indigo eyes in their place, not a trace of red to be found.

"R-Raven?"

"What you thought is correct. It seems I siphoned his power," Raven responds as though nothing is amiss.

"But…?"

"No buts. I've taken on his abilities, and the weaknesses that come with them. However, knowing they're there has given me what I needed to correct for the problem."

"Meaning?" Jinx grouses.

"Meaning I've simply assimilated it. When I get angry, I will likely get stronger from now on. I may also be able to make people quick to anger or vengeful, were I any more inclined to toy with his ability than I am my own. But I won't be driven by it, so I should be under control now."

"Great. And about that part with your own ability-"

"You noticed it as well, surely. It would seem that he called me Pride not just out of sticking to a theme. Now that I've figured out what it is I've been doing, and where it is inside me, there won't be any more accidental manipulations."

Jinx nods in agreement, quickly kneeling in front of her lover.

"I don't want you taking the others on unprepared, Raven."

"I won't. Now I'm aware that it's something that can happen. It was poor luck to find it out with Wrath and not something I'm used to dealing with, but I'm using it for a number of lessons."

Jinx smirks in response, her head coming to rest in the crook of the psychic's neck.

"Never been a slow learner. So, you've got it under control?"

"No starting a bar fight in Los Angeles," Raven swears.

"Damn right…"  
 ***********************

Raven and Jinx step through the doors to the club.

As soon as they pass through the entrance, a mysterious sensation rakes across them, seeming to analyze their entire beings.

"The hell's that?" Jinx mutters.

Raven is distracted from her reply by the rise of a long, smooth piano melody in the club's space.

The sound draws their attentions to the side of the large room, and the grand piano resting there.

Sitting on the edge of the piano is a tall woman wearing a white mask over half her face.

Her black cocktail dress is the same shade as her curtain of hair, reaching nearly to her hips.

The same time they take her in, the women feel her attention on them as well, though she makes no move towards them.

The melody picks up in pace, drawing Raven's senses to the piano's player.

By all appearances, the man is simply a very well dressed, reasonably attractive piano player.

Raven's senses, however, tell her far more about the man and the club they've walked into.

Her skin pales and sweat breaks free on her forehead, the gem in her chakra turning noticeably darker.

The shift happens in the same span of time it takes for Jinx to notice the bar is disturbingly empty for someplace so posh-seeming in the night.

Raven's groan brings the meta's attention to her, and then to the piano player.

The man has a strange shadow around his body to Jinx's gaze, the shape constantly shifting to cause her a headache.

She moves her senses away from the shape and finds that the man is decidedly not human, though the feeling running through her is nowhere near unpleasant enough to cause her to be ill.

The man abruptly looks up from his piano as the melody slows to a smooth stop.

"Hello, ladies. You're twenty-three seconds later than expected," he muses in a rhythmic voice.

The sound seems to hit Raven like a physical blow, and Jinx's eyes widen when the psychic hunches in on herself.

"Raven!?"

"Your girlfriend doesn't seem to be reacting well," the man muses as he moves away from the instrument.

Jinx turns to glare at him, her hands releasing pink sparks.

Seeing them, Raven quickly clamps a hand down on the meta's wrist, her eyes wide in panic.

"Do not repeat my earlier mistake, Jinx. This is not the place for it," she says in a strained, nearly whimpering, voice.

Jinx releases her hold on her power, turning worried eyes to her lover.

"You have good control. Also more than expected… My name's Sam, and I'll tell you now that you'll be disappointed with what answers I'm going to give you."

Raven's eyes flash black, but instead of the attack Jinx expects given her reaction, soul-self flashes into existence like a second skin to cover the empath.

As soon as the layer of magic is erected, the sensations flowing through Raven vanish with a relieved sigh.

"Convenient ability, to so easily reject reality's grasp and rules. Even if it's in a self-imposed prison," Sam muses.

Amusement flows from the man, raising Jinx's hackles.

"It's not as convenient as one would think, given what taint acts as its source," Raven responds in a monotone that sets Jinx even further on edge.

"You seem to have worse father issues than I do, if how much you hate him is any indication," he responds without missing a beat.

Raven's eyes narrow to slits, a hint of red appearing in them.

"Even  _I_  have limits, but I would say it's not an unfair comparison."

"You really  _should_  make a plan for that. He's not dead. Well, not really, but then, can you ever really kill immortals? Though you certainly siphoned enough power from him to beat him that it's unlikely he'll be coming back for at  _least_  a few centuries. Assuming the universe has that timeframe."

"Who the  _hell_  are you!?" Jinx demands, the amount of information Sam knows greatly disturbing the meta.

Raven opens her mouth, but finds that no sound can come when Sam locks eyes with her.

He raises a finger to his lips and shakes his head, a light  _shush_ ing sound escaping.

"Nicole wouldn't relish the manner of entities that would stir on  _that_  utterance in a place like this."

Raven's mouth clamps shut, the warning sending a spike of ice through her veins.

"Where are the keys?" she finally asks.

"It's rude for mortals to ask questions they already know the answers to. Ask Dream, if you find him. It's dangerous to discuss such matters in a mortal plane where anything can be listening, even were it not redundant rehashing of what you know."

"Are you one of those things? The Endless?" Jinx demands with a huff.

Sam's gaze slides to the meta, who immediately feels her pulse racing.

"Mazikeen, would you kindly get Miss Diaz a complimentary drink while I have a discussion with Raven?"

"Oh, I don't… think… so…"

Raven looks over at the meta to find her attention transfixed on the masked woman, evidently "Mazikeen."

The blush on her skin causes Raven's eyes to narrow, though there's no red in her gaze, and when she looks towards Mazikeen, she finds a thick, ethereal ribbon of light flowing from her to coil around Jinx.

"Um… Mudslide, if you've got it," Jinx says while she's led away.

"Using magic on my mate is enough reason for me to cause an…  _incident_ ," Raven states once her lover disappears from sight.

He chuckles in response, taking a drink from a goblet that seems to materialize from thin air.

"I expected better than for you to entertain starting a fight like that over petty jealousy."

"It seems you aren't able to see as much as  _I'd_  expected," Raven retorts. "When it comes to those I love, I embrace the darker side of my nature. As she would tell you, I tend to be very…  _possessive_  of her."

Another chuckle sounds, though no amusement seems to reach Sam's eyes.

"An interesting choice of term. As it stands, you can hardly attack Mazikeen anymore than you would let others blame you for things randomly exploding when you're off-balance."

"It takes effort to enchant her," Raven argues.

"I'm sure. For the most part. But Mazikeen is a Lilim, a…  _succubus_ … and she's enacting no such effort on your…  _mate_ ," he retorts. "You'd be just as susceptible to her natural charms as the meta, as any mortal, were you not wrapped in your self-possession."

She casts a gaze towards the women, staring at Mazikeen's aura.

She frowns at realizing the ribbon, whatever it is, is  _not_  a spell of any kind.

"Don't be jealous. It's unseemly, and Mazikeen's hardly the type to entertain Nicole as anything more than a moment's distraction so she doesn't ask any questions that  _you_  don't want answered."

Raven's gaze returns to him, a pinkish cast forming and vanishing from her orbs in an instant.

"I'm not worried. Even if something like that existed, you'd be just as likely to feed her lines that would satisfy her curiosity. I mean, you  _are_  the lying prince, aren't you?"

His lips press into a hard line, Raven shivering at the hard cast to his gaze despite her soul-self barrier.

"I  _never_  lie, Raven, and that's a somewhat irksome mistake to make for someone so learned, mortal though you may be."

"You lied about your name," she retorts.

He instantly relaxes, a brow quirking at her and a smile edged with condescension directed at her.

"Not at all. Sam is shorthand for a number of names, including Samael. Another aspect, given to me countless ages ago, to be positive, but still relevant, and less likely to bring undesired attentions my, and your, way. So no, I did not lie when introducing myself as such."

He takes another drink from his goblet, a faint glow shining against his chin from within.

"I really  _do_ loathe such dated concepts, though. I've always had the principle of absolute honesty. I know word being bond is nigh-meaningless to mortals these days, but it remains just as much part of my personality now as the dawn."

Raven shrugs at that, finding "Sam" a strange person to have a conversation with.

"It's part of the reason so many see me as evil, you know. Ugly truths are very unpleasant to hear, and I've found humans in particular to be overly prone to such negative responses. You're likely going to leave here thinking me cruel, as well," he adds.

"I can deal with bad news just fine," she retorts with a slight narrowing to her eyes.

"That remains to be seen."

Suddenly the goblet disappears, and he moves in a circle around her as though stalking prey.

"I must say, as mortals go, you certainly are an interesting concept. A Tool of Fate who doesn't seem to share my despair of predestination, due only to thinking that you've somehow beaten your fate. A demon with a mate you can't physically mate with. A hero embedded firmly on the side of Order, born from incarnated darkness and evil. Yes, I've always wondered what a meeting with you would be like, once I saw that we would be meeting."

Raven shudders, his statements seeming both admiring and condescending at the same time without any reason for either to be true.

"Well, I'm here now. Despite Fate," she mutters.

"Indeed, you are. It seems my assumption on your views of Fate disagreeing with mine weren't entirely correct, then."

Raven shrugs it off, refusing to turn to face him while he stops at her back.

"I came to see it as malleable. Fate is certainly something that governs the universe, but it can be worked around. If anything, it's just an unfortunate side-effect of a flawed system. An incomplete surrogate made in laziness."

"Don't let Him hear you say that," Sam muses with a chuckle. "Either of them, actually."

"I somehow don't feel I have much choice in  _that_  matter," she mutters. "But seeing as how my questions coming here are apparently going to be given no satisfactory answer, I'll shelve those for a bit. I'm curious, too, though I loathe admitting it."

A peal of laughter sounds nearby, and Raven feels blood leaking from where her nails pierce her palms.

She briefly ponders the consequences of punching a succubus working under such a powerful force, but he speaks in a way suggesting he realizes her thoughts.

"Go on," he responds while walking back to her front.

"How does one just  _leave_  Hell?"

"By walking through the gate, obviously," he deadpans without missing a beat.

"I suppose for  _you_ , it really  _could_  be that simple."

"You mortals would have noticed long ago if Hell was entirely sealed off from new souls to be punished. When I took my leave, I made sure to leave the way in open, and promptly spited Dream by putting the keys in his care. A tad petty, but amusing nonetheless."

"So visiting…  _Morpheus_ … really was the only choice I had from the start, then," she sighs, entirely uncomfortable using the true name of a being so powerful.

Something occurs to her then, a hard frown forming.

"Wait. If you're not inside the Gate, who are they trying to unleash?"

"There are still authorities down there, even without me present. I imagine that my predecessor would gladly act on the chance to subject Earth to the torment he could unleash when the door is opened."

"So it's true, then. You're really different from The First?"

"The Fallen followed after my departure. I'm often confused with the First, to both of our irritations. And the First will relish free reign."

"Couldn't you stop them?"

"Were I so inclined," Sam agrees. "I'm not. As long as the Gate stands, they will not threaten reality itself for long. I'll act, if they decide to attempt that instead of just a temporary release."

"Well, I suppose I'll just have to make sure it doesn't come to that, then."

"You're very confident for one with such limited foresight. Do take care, though. You may end up becoming exactly what you loathe, if you don't act with caution to avoid assimilating them as you did your sibling."

"I'll work on it," she huffs. "I do not repeat mistakes often."

"Your near-excommunication from that Titans group would suggest otherwise," he retorts with a chuckle.

"I was not the only one making mistakes there. And that matter is irrelevant, though I find it…  _creepy…_  that you know that much. As it stands, I will learn from what happened with Jared."

"Perhaps you will, perhaps not. As you say, it's irrelevant to me, though not as much to yourself as you'd like to think. All the same, you almost certainly do not have the resolve to have nearly as much confidence as you do."

"I like to think of it as determination, not confidence. Hell can  _not_  rise to Earth so long as it occurs in the same reality that myself and my loved ones exist in. I will therefore use everything in my power, up to and, if necessary, including my life, to make sure that they can avoid living in such a reality."

"Really. Mortals are such ultimately petty creatures," he mutters with a derisive snort. "You plan on staying a battle on the scale of Creation itself, based solely on desiring to keep your mate happy."

"Mortals and otherwise aren't so dissimilar in that regard," she argues with a glare. "Had you not decided to leave the keys in the hands of others, this wouldn't even be an issue in the first place."

The response she's expecting isn't the amused laugh that leaves him, the sound coiling around her mind even through her barrier.

"Certainly true, though assigning blame will not solve the problems you face. Truly a meaningless comfort, if ever there was one."

"I never said I wasn't petty," she quips. "Just that you shouldn't take such a stance if you're not much better. Is there a countermeasure to the keys? Something to keep the Sons of Trigon from functioning in the event that I can't stop them from getting them?"

His eyes gain a faraway look, his attention clearly on something other than Raven.

Before she moves to gain his focus back, though, the mist clears from his orbs and he sends her an amused smirk.

"If there is, I don't know of it. You'd best ask the questions you want answered, before you lose your patience and make a regrettable decision."

The way he says it makes her wonder what he'd been looking at.

She does not, however, make the mistake of inquiring about it.

He speaks as she opens her mouth, seeming to have waited specifically for it, if the growth of his smirk at her darkened glare is any indication.

"You're too afraid to ask them, regardless."

"I am not so weak," she argues.

"Perhaps, but you won't ask, all the same. Ironically, to attempt to use my foresight due to it being significantly stronger than your own would be the same as seeking help from Fate, would it not?"

"If it's so much stronger, I would think you wouldn't have had expectations that went unmet with our meeting."

He grins, taking a step that puts him nearly against her.

She tenses, waiting for a blow to come, and briefly wonders if her soul-self could stop the impact from such a strong physical blow.

It doesn't come, however, his eyes merely narrowing in amusement.

"You debated just now. In another place, you acted, throwing a fist with your soul around it at my carotid artery. I avoided, got behind you, and snapped your neck. In this reality, you thought better of it."

Her eyes widen, her hand unconsciously raising up to cup her throat.

"My sight is nearly omnipotent. But even omniscience is imperfect in this reality with so many overlapping existences and dimensions. I see possibilities more often than events. Most times it pertains to this reality, but not always. Even if you  _did_  ask, I would not be able to give you a definitive answer. That you buck Fate's grasp where you can, even in minor ways, makes it even more clouded."

"Fair enough. Then a concrete question with a concrete answer. Where are the Sons of Trigon?" she demands undeterred.

"Ever on the move. They're clearer, to be certain, but even if I tell you where they are now, or where they're going in time, you will not be able to catch them without constant input from me to match their constant shifting. I could provide such a service, for a price that you would never willingly pay, much to your credit, I think. I told you when we started that you would not like my answers, Raven. Was I  _lying_?"

She releases an irritated huff, refusing to meet his eyes.

"I should have expected as much. Worth a try, nonetheless. This leaves me with one course, then."

"So it does. I can't say I'm not interested to see how this will end. If you  _do_  happen to succeed, feel free to come back. We'll throw a celebration on the house, for doing something that a fatalistic person would think impossible for a two-person group. And your nuptials, of course," he adds with a smirk.

Somehow, Raven finds herself chuckling despite the situation, a smirk curving her lips.

"The idea of you facilitating a marriage must mean a far more acute sense of humour than you've displayed thus far."

"Anything is possible," he agrees. "And I believe our meeting's adjourned, if that will be all."

Raven turns her attention to the approaching women, once again feeling her pulse rise at the blush on Jinx's face.

A frown wars greatly with the coloring, however, the meta's eyes seeming far clearer than expected.

As soon as the meta reaches her side, Mazikeen walks back to the bar, and Jinx's expression darkens significantly.

Her gaze moves to Raven, and even with her empathy so tightly locked away from the same reality her lover stands in, the empath can practically feel the guilt.

Raven's hand comes to rest on the meta's shoulder, and soul-self immediately expands to surround her as well.

"It's alright. Nothing to be guilty about," she soothes as soon as she  _does_  feel the waves of the emotion rolling against her.

Jinx says nothing, turning a harsh glare on Sam.

"Tell your waitress that if I ever meet her again, I'm going to pay her back for getting in my head," she commands.

"I suspect she'd find that an interesting prospect," Sam laughs. "Though, as Raven will tell you, she deserves no hatred."

"Much as I'd like to, I cannot wholly disagree," Raven sighs. "It is not your fault, nor really hers. I'd say it's your fault, actually, were I so suicidal," she adds in Sam's direction.

"I'm not as reactionary as all that. You can certainly blame me, if you wish. You wouldn't be nearly the first."

"At any rate, I believe I'll be declining your offer. When I'm victorious, I do not think it would be a wise decision to come to a place with so many chances of a bad deal, were I to become more than simply an  _interesting concept_."

" _When_. So presumptuous. Though if you  _do_ succeed, your fear would not be entirely unfounded," he responds with a laugh.

With a nod, Raven turns and heads for the doors with Jinx almost clinging to her side.

"I look forward to seeing what outcome becomes reality," he says with another laugh in way of goodbye.

Raven refuses to respond as they make their way out of the Lux, the soul-self shield not dissipating for several teleportations…  
 **************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Having just re-read a number of Vertigo Comics titles, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. Even more than I was expecting when I was coming up with the concept for this meeting. Writing that conversation was a blast from beginning to end, and I hope you all enjoy as much as I did.

As always, be sure to give your thoughts, be they positive or negative, and I'll see you all next time!


	45. Submersion

# XLIV. Submersion

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx stares at Raven, her eyes wide with worry.

They both take a seat on their bed, the old house already becoming strangely comforting for the women to return to.

Once they come to a stop, Raven's dress of moving shadows dissolving back into her white cloak, Jinx starts in.

"Raven, who in the fuck-"

"It is better you do not ask," Raven interrupts.

Jinx begins to retort, but stops when she sees the expression on her fiancé's face.

The sudden sense of foreboding forming an iron ball in her stomach helps her decision, as well.

"I'll defer to your judgment on that one."

She frowns, a wave of ugly emotion rolling from her again.

"I know you said it's cool, but I still feel like an ass, especially after goin' to the Oblivion," she mumbles.

"No need to feel that way. I want to wish great pain upon her, mind you, but as… Sam… said, I could not blame her for a part of her physiology any more than I would accept blame for things getting broken when I'm upset."

"So who the hell  _was_  she? One look and it felt like I was drugged, and it took me almost until we were walkin' back to start gettin' the hell out of whatever she was doin' to me."

"I do not know  _who_  she is, for certain, at any rate, but as for  _what_ , she is a succubus. That you were so quickly able to get free is pretty amazing, actually," Raven explains.

"Okay… that's freaky as shit… Glad she didn't… Wait, those're different from the incubi that feed on women, right? Shouldn't her shit not have worked on me, then?"

Raven's brow rises, and with a slight smirk, she makes a gestured line between the two.

"Their nutrition comes from sexual energy. It is not related to the victim's gender, but rather who finds them attractive, so they can generate a response to feed on."

"Oh," Jinx mutters with a brightening blush. "Duh."

"At any rate, there is some information I managed to gain. It seems we would have been better off just going to the Dreaming instead of wasting so much time, though."

"Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm still not really clear on all of this. I'd never heard about  _any_ of this stuff before today. So small steps so we're on the same page. The Dreaming… what is it? Is it an alien planet, an entirely different dimension, or what?"

Raven's eyes narrow in thought, her mind searching for proper terms for such an odd concept.

"It's not really any of those… And keep in mind that just because I know that some things exist doesn't mean I'm by any means an expert. Demons know more than humans about what else exists, and my bloodline has granted me access to some of that, if by no means everything. But from what I've come to understand, the Dreaming is exactly what its name implies. It is where dreams are born and die in."

"So… an astral plane?"

"Yes and no. It is an astral plane, but there is a physicality to it. Morpheus is the king and ruler of the Dreaming, so it would follow to reason that there is something there for him to rule and that it isn't simply a mental plane."

"Okay, think I've got that down. You were sayin' something to Constantine about it being nearly suicidal to try to go there. How about we hash  _that_ out, because I don't really love the idea of suicide, especially if they're likely to kill themselves and make it meaningless."

"There will be dangers to going there. To be powerful enough there to steal the keys from Morpheus, they will need to physically go there. I'm guessing a dimension made literally of dreams and nightmares given form is not suited well to having a corporeal body, and it will slow them down if they  _do_ manage to go there physically and survive."

"And if they go there the way you're planning?"

"They will be faster, and able to move more easily, but will be weaker. But a mind wandering that kind of realm without a body to contain it in will be significantly more vulnerable."

"Okay, I  _really_  don't like the sound of that," Jinx mutters. "I'm sick of things gettin' in my head already."

Her tone alerts Raven just as much as the emotions permeating the air what track her lover's mind has taken.

Turning fully toward the meta, she cups her cheek, warmth seeping in to her fingertips.

Jinx quivers slightly and leans her head into the touch, her eyes automatically slipping closed.

A frown suddenly forms on her lips, ruining the serene expression, though her eyes remain closed.

"And Rae, I know I'm bitchin', and I really  _don't_ like the idea of how this place is shapin' up. But if you for a second think I'm lettin' you go at it alone because I've got a hang-up about this, I will make sure you regret it," she swears.

Smirking slightly, Raven runs her other hand through the meta's long mane.

"I wouldn't dream of it," she offers.

"That's a terrible joke," Jinx retorts with a snort.

"Perhaps. But unfortunately, what I know of the actual realm itself comes from somewhat exaggerating accounts. I do not know what is there, or where things are, or how we would navigate. All I can say with certainty is that I  _can_ get us there, together. Nothing else is so assured."

"So it's a place we know nothing about, can't really prepare for, and is gonna' probably be playing on our worst fears. Well, Hell's probably a lot worse, so I guess we've got  _that_  goin' for us," Jinx muses.

"That sums it up pretty well," Raven sighs. "I'm hoping my siblings do not know all of this and will take the riskier path. We need speed on our side, as they'll likely have a head-start."

"Fan-tastic. Alright, that covers that… So Morpheus… How's all that work, exactly?"

"The Endless are, as the title suggests, possibly the oldest creatures in existence throughout all of the universes combined. It's natural that those beings that know of them, who meet them, have come up with aspects of them. Morpheus, god of dreams, is a single aspect of the Endless in charge of the Dreaming."

"Sam was talkin' about the same guy, then? So, is the dimension named after him, or what?"

" _Sam_ was comfortable using that name, but I am not. They are all neutral beings, but all the same, I do not like gaining the attention of such powerful beings, any more than I strictly have to."

"He was  _really_  comfortable," Jinx muses.

The light in Jinx's eyes alerts Raven to her lover's curiosity rearing its obstinate head, and she releases an involuntary groan.

"Sam was shorthand for Samael. It is a name from Jewish lore, given to an archangel tasked with death and seen as both good and evil. As is common for human faiths, there were a lot of changes, a lot of different story attributions and aspects, given to that man, and he's a part of the army of Heaven while also being the one charged with wedding Lilith and seducing Eve in the Christian form of humanity's dawn," Raven explains.

Jinx turns completely pale, her mouth dropping open in shock as she pieces it together.

"Holy… so you mean to tell me that we were just… and he was just…"

"Words, Jinx, use your words," Raven muses with growing amusement.

"I don't have any. Shit, Rae, I was just drinking there, while you were talking to the goddamned devil," Jinx shrills.

"So it would seem. There is a reason I did not argue with him when he said you wouldn't enjoy what would come if I'd said his name. But as I said, there  _is_ something to be said for exaggerated stories changing over time."

"Well, obviously, or we'd be a pile of dust on his damn floor, but I mean… holy shit, Raven. You just  _talked_. To the damn devil. I don't know whether it's terrifying or amazing! Why aren't you freaking out!?"

"You're doing enough for the both of us," Raven quips with a small smirk. "But there is a reason that I got us out of there fast. While he was by far more…  _human_  than I ever could've expected, I did not wish to linger."

"What do you mean  _human_? You got sick just being near him and he nearly knocked you on your ass by  _speaking_."

"A trait of my bloodline, not an intentional act by him. It's not that I like him, and he's certainly not an agent of Order or on the  _us_ side of things by any stretch, but I wouldn't think of him as an evil being."

Jinx thinks over her lover's words, a deeper frown marring her expression.

"This isn't a… demon thing… is it? He didn't do something to you, right?" she asks, a memory of two red eyes staring at her briefly flashing to her mind.

"No," Raven says in a tone making her being offended clear. "I imagine what I experienced is the opposite reaction that demons would have. It may be one of the things that separates what I am from what demons are. I truthfully do not know, but my opinion of the man is entirely my own."

Feeling the pulse of energy within her mind, she takes a calming breath.

When it releases, her body relaxes, the warning in her mind receding.

"At any rate, this is irrelevant. We need to decide what to do. We will be going to the Dreaming mentally, and will need someplace for our bodies. A year ago, I would suggest the room I had built to withstand Trigon in the Tower, but I don't trust my own unconscious body with them, much less yours. It would be simple for other brothers of mine to do what Jared did. Taking Zatanna into account, even if I am working with the League, I wouldn't trust the Watchtower's security, either."

Jinx nods in agreement, letting the topic of her lover's sympathies go for a better time.

"No HQ, either. Steel wouldn't have the kind of people on staff that would be able to keep us safe if they decide to send one of your brothers. Here?" Jinx muses with a gaze around the room.

"Not that safe yet," Raven responds with memories of the man that had been there on her arrival. "We don't have the time needed to set up wardings on par with the apartment."

"Just one option, then," Jinx muses. "Fate would probably be better at keeping our asses safe while we aren't home than anybody else, anyway. Do you have any idea where that tower is?"

Raven catches on to her lover's mindset easily enough, a thoughtful frown forming on her lips.

"Might as well call ahead," she muses while her hand vanishes into a black vortex.

She flips open Jinx's H.I.V.E. communicator once it's free of her pocket dimension.

Her call goes through, but doesn't connect.

Frowning, Raven recalls telling him to consult his helmet.

"He will not be awake. We will need to physically go there and wake him from his meditation… I  _may_  have an idea on getting there."

She offers Jinx her hand, and darkness once again envelops the women.

" _Fati turri da nobis aditum_ ," the empath intones.

A pulling sensation runs through the women, and Jinx's eyes widen as a golden light envelops the bubble of soul-self.

Raven's hold on her barrier tightens as something takes a firm hold on the bubble and throws it.

They explode back into reality, crashing hard into dirt.

Jinx comes after Raven, landing with an  _oomph_ atop the demonling.

They lay there, still held in the bubble, for several moments.

When nothing further happens, Raven's eyes return to their indigo color and it fades.

"What the fuck was  _that_!?" Jinx demands.

Grunting, Raven lifts the meta off of her and sets them both on their feet, her eyes narrowed.

Brushing dirt from her pristine cloak, she turns in a circle to take in their surroundings.

"Were I to hazard a guess, we cannot just jump into the Tower of Fate. I would think that if it had been a magician who  _wasn't_  surrounded in a large dimensional shield, they would have been turned to paste on the forest floor."

Jinx pales at that, casting her own gaze around.

Indeed, there are a number of questionably colored spots mingled with the browns, greens, and blacks making up the ground.

Both women have sudden flashbacks to Raven's forced dream as they look, as well, the forest nearly identical to the clearing she'd been shown.

Shaking it off, Raven's eyes move skyward, and she glares at the massive pillar of brick in the near distance.

"Luckily, we  _did_  have such a barrier, and we are now where we were going, anyway," she muses.

Jinx follows her stare and finds the tower, as well, her own eyes hardening.

"I'd throw a hex at the damn thing on principle, if I wasn't positive it'd be thrown right back at me," she grouses.

"We'll both be glad you already know that, then," Raven muses.

"So that's the mystical stronghold? I always thought it'd be…  _bigger_. And more magical-looking, with dark clouds and lightning all around it."

"I think your imagination ran on you, Jinx," Raven laughs. "Though I did not expect it to be so outwardly noticeable, myself. I've heard it's much larger within."

"Well, we didn't get made into part of the scenery, so let's go knock and hope it's not as aggressive," Jinx sighs before heading off.

Raven flies past her, her hand raised to knock by the time the meta reaches the tower.

The empath's eyes widen when the door dissolves to smoke before her hand touches the massive slab of smooth stone.

"Oh, sure, toss us to our deaths if we try to teleport, but we come to the door and it just invites us in."

Raven smirks and gestures her inside, the door re-forming the instant they're both inside.

The wall holding the door vanishes entirely, then.

With a curse, Jinx looks around to find that they're standing on a stairway directly from M.C. Escher's dreams.

Stairs rise high into the distance, well past where the meta's eyes can follow. In the air around them, many other staircases seem to float without any support, going every direction.

Jinx is inclined to wonder how someone could walk on stairs that were upside down or at a complete incline.

Despite her near-certainty that some magic would make it non-lethal to transverse, her mind moves to the tower's defenses trying to kill them.

Raven raises a brow when the meta tightly grabs on to her arm, but makes no comment on it.

"Mind givin' me a lift?" she asks to hide her nervousness.

"It will certainly be faster."

Jinx shrieks when Raven spins and, in one quick movement, gets her into her arms in a bridal carry.

They then lift off the ground, quickly rising up the staircase.

For what seems like an eternity, they continue up the stairs without an end in sight.

"Is this thing really this long, or are we bein' screwed with?" Jinx asks.

"Probably both. Hang on more tightly."

Jinx asks no questions as her arms coil around the back of Raven's neck, her body pressing more firmly against her lover's body.

A spark connects between their minds for a brief moment, and both of their eyes turn to lenses of color.

" _Calamitatis_!" they shout in unison.

Magic flows free from the women, filling the entire dimension in every direction with black and pink light.

When the light clears and their visions return, they find that nothing has changed in their surroundings.

"Well, it was worth a shot," Jinx muses with a sigh. "Let's just keep floating up."

"That could take eternity, if this is a trap to keep invaders from ever reaching Nabu's sanctum."

A thought occurs to Raven, then, and she turns her gaze to the black void above their heads.

While the mystic they work with was, indeed, the owner of the tower, the power for all of its magic came from the spirit inhabiting his golden helmet.

Perhaps the Order Lord would be able to at least get his vessel's attention for them.

"That might work, actually.  _Nabu!_ "

The call echoes throughout the dimension, seeming to reverberate from walls that don't exist.

Something shifts in the air, and the women shudder at feeling a strange awareness taking notice of them.

" _Dare nobis transitum, Nabu_!" Raven shouts.

A crack of lightning arcs down from the sky, heading straight for them.

Instinct takes over and Raven dives backward through a forming portal, coming to a stop several dozen steps lower.

Where the lightning had struck, a glowing doorway of white light shimmers.

Raven tentatively moves back up and through the door, not entirely positive she's not being sent to some void by Nabu's spirit.

She breathes a large sigh of relief when she finds grey brick beneath her feet, the room around them circular.

In the center of the room, Doctor Fate is floating in a lotus position, a glowing ankh of gold burning in the air behind him.

His eyes slowly open as she sets Jinx on her feet, the magic around him disappearing in an instant.

"It is good to see you," he says in greeting. "I trust your meeting with Constantine went productively?"

"Good to see you, too. Can we talk about your trapdoor for a sec? It's not exactly  _inviting_  down there," Jinx muses.

"It's not meant to be," he retorts. "I do apologize for not being able to answer. Good to see you made it past the barriers, though. I will make certain to include you into the exception for future visits."

"Thank you very much. And yes, Constantine was very helpful. The consensus we've reached is that we must enter the Dreaming."

"Not a simple task, by any means. That domain is even old to Nabu's memories. What can I do to help?"

"We need someplace to leave our bodies while we're in la-la land," Jinx explains.

"And if there is one place on this planet that my brothers will not be able to show up and kill us while we're attempting to reach Morpheus, this tower is it."

He nods, his demeanor suggesting he already knew all of the information before they'd mentioned anything.

"This tower is not entirely impenetrable, even discounting your entry past the wards with Nabu's permission. But it, and I, will certainly keep you secure while on your journey."

His gaze seems to go somewhere else, eerily mimicking Sam's own vision, before returning to them.

"I will say, though, that you must be cautious. If you get lost within Dream's realm, your bodies will be of no consequence. Even your ability to entirely separate soul and body will not save you if that happens, Raven."

The women pale, despite already knowing of that particular risk.

"You, uh, wouldn't happen to know anythin' about the lay of the land there, would you? I mean, the spirit in that helmet's probably seen everything at least once, right?" Jinx asks hopefully.

"I know of the key elements there. The Dreaming is vast, and what Nabu knows of it could have greatly changed within the centuries. But what I know is that the castle that Dream occupies lies in the center of the domain. It's guarded by three fearsome creatures of pure magic."

"Wonderful. I suppose reaching a timeless being that is older than even the Lords of Order and Chaos wouldn't be  _easy_ ," Raven sighs.

Fate's eyes move upward for a moment, as though hearing something from above.

Then he nods, apparently agreeing with whatever Nabu's words are.

"He says that you two had best be careful. The realm is a vague one, made up of shifting imagination and dreams. And that you run the risk of meeting your brothers when they will be stronger than you, as they will not willingly risk their physical forms by leaving them behind as you are. Even with that, your greatest risk of being lost will come if you happen upon the Gates of Horn and Ivory. There are ways to get to the castle that do not involve those doors, but should you come across them, you will be in the greatest danger of being confused and losing your direction."

The news further tightens the ball of nerves forming in the stomachs of both women, and Jinx releases a frustrated sigh.

"Raven, when we're done with all this, we're taking a vacation. And I'm picking, because your choices for exotic places to take me are really sucking recently," she bemoans.

The mood lightens somewhat, and Raven nods in agreement easily.

"Fair enough." she laughs.

Turning her attention back to Fate, she gives a small bow.

"And, in the unlikely event that this all goes horribly wrong, I just want to say thank you for your help along the way," she informs the mystic.

"Do not be so pessimistic. Nabu's warnings are necessary, but I have no doubt you two will succeed in your task."

Raven almost asks if he'd seen this working out well, but her voice refuses to form the syllables, frozen in fear of the possible answer as it is.

Instead, she gives him a nod and again takes hold of Jinx's hand.

In a short time, the women are floating within a barrier of light, an ankh burning over their heads.

When their eyes open once more, they find themselves in a world of blue and white haze…  
 *********************************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

fati- Latin: "Fate's"

turri- Latin: "tower"

da- Latin: "give"

nobis- Latin: "us"

aditum- Latin: "access"

calamitatis- Latin: "disillusion"

Dare nobis transitum- Latin: "Grant passage to us"

I think that an audio drama I recently listened to called Lilith's Children may have spilled into this chapter, just a bit, where the conversation involving "Sam" are concerned. I probably should have included the note about who Sam actually was with the last chapter, but I've been trying to explain things better in-story so that my editor notes are kept to translations instead. We're approaching the final act of the story, and I hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am.

Be sure to give me your thoughts, be they positive or not, and I'll see you all next time!


	46. The Dreaming

# XLV. The Dreaming

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven stands on the shifting ground of mist.

As it rolls around her ethereal feet, a strange electrical sensation runs through her nonexistent limbs.

Even without her real body, she feels a strong grip on her hand.

As soon as she notices it, the grasp tightens, and she finds her attention drawn to a sparking mass of pink and black.

The form seems like numerous wires had been cut with energy still moving through them.

She feels a smile form in her mind at how chaotic the aura is, seeming to match Jinx's personality perfectly.

Warmth seeps into her false hand, making her realize that the pink light is seeping into her own silhouette of an astral form.

At the same time she realizes this, she also notices her own aura slipping into her lover's essence.

Where such a thing shouldn't be possible without a great deal of force and pain, Jinx's mind doesn't seem to react at all.

The pure lenses of white light that mark her eyes remain locked on Raven's own form.

Despite the fact that their auras merging doesn't seem to be causing horrors to befall them, Raven feels it's not a good thing, nonetheless.

" _Azarath Metrion Zinthos_ ," she chants, the words seeming to echo within her mind and the empty space around them.

Just as she notices that she had no mouth that she should have been able to speak her mantra with, lips seem to solidify.

The rest of her body follows, her vague darkness taking on the curves and lines of her natural form.

She feels Jinx's attention as the black light making her astral form up stretches, and soon she's standing in a constructed version of her white cloak.

As soon as the cloak resolves, so, too, does the rest of her body take form.

"Think hard. You see yourself in the mirror all the time. Jinx, concentrate on that image, now _,_ " she instructs, her hold on Jinx's pseudo-hand tightening to anchor the metahuman's mind.

The orbs slip closed and a light humming sound reaches Raven's senses.

Slowly, the sparks begin to lose their random pattern, taking on the meta's familiar shape.

Even as Jinx takes on a humanoid form, the sparking continues, seeming as though her body is hidden behind a heat mirage as the energy constantly moves.

With her body almost fully formed, Raven notices a frown on her expression.

Suddenly, an echoing  _pop_  sounds, and Jinx's body resolves into solidity.

Something seems to stir in the mist at the sound, an awareness settling on the women that puts them immediately on edge.

"So this is the Dreaming?" Jinx asks in a whisper, her eyes darting around.

"Let's hope so," Raven sighs.

Her gaze moves around them, searching for any signs of land nearby.

The blue haze obscures everything, her perceptions telling her that they aren't even on solid land.

"Gotta' say, Rae, I never thought I'd be able to think this, but I'd take Nevermore any day of the week," Jinx mutters nervously.

Raven gently squeezes her hand, pulling Jinx's form closer to her.

"It is just mist," she soothes. "Granted, a  _lot_  of mist that's probably hiding something worse, but still."

Jinx looks at her oddly, a frown curving her lips.

"What  _mist_? It looks like a damn abyss ready to swallow us. Even Nevermore has a lot of light," she grumbles.

"What you are seeing and what I am seeing are different, it appears. I can't make out any shapes. Do you see any structures?"

"Stupid astral planes," Jinx groans while turning in a circle.

Her hand suddenly tightens, drawing Raven's attention to the side.

"I see Dracula's damn castle, I think."

She points skyward with her free hand, a frown on her lips.

"Lead the way. Perhaps there will be clearance in what I'm seeing further along."

Nodding, Jinx takes off with the demonling quickly moving behind her.

They run for what seems like an eternity down a path Raven can't see, until Jinx slows down.

Her head turns from side-to-side, an uncertain look on her face.

"Uh, there're three paths. They look the same to me."

Raven looks around as well, finding her own hopes that the mist would clear answered, somewhat.

"We're on a circle of ground, I think. I see a path to the right," she responds.

As Jinx turns to walk, Raven pulls her short.

"Hang on. We need to test this. See if the areas we're not perceiving might end up getting us killed. Where are the other paths you see?"

Jinx blinks in surprise, the thought one that hadn't occurred to her.

She blanches despite her current lack of blood, leading Raven to the edge of one of the other paths.

Her hold on Jinx's hand tightening somewhat as she takes a step where Jinx indicates.

The outstretched foot finds no ground in the void in front of her, her leg dropping somewhat before she quickly jerks it back.

"That could've been bad," Jinx muses with a whistle. "My turn."

Just as cautiously, she steps out onto the path of blackened stone before her eyes.

Where Raven's foot had seemed to shift right through the material, the meta's comes to rest, nothing but solid ground beneath her.

Her grip becomes white on Raven's hand as she takes another step onto the path, curiosity getting the better of her.

Raven's eyes widen as her fiancé appears to stand on nothing but air, mist swirling around her feet.

Gaining a sense of foreboding, she lets her soul-self seep slightly from her aura.

Her hand becomes a tendril of darkness that coils around Jinx's arm.

She stifles a groan as sudden lightheadedness strikes her, focusing on the more important matter at hand.

"Do not let go of my hand, Jinx," she warns.

She tentatively reaches her foot out, placing it directly at the side of Jinx's.

Again, she meets nothing but air, her foot sinking below the meta's.

Jinx immediately tenses, her eyes going wide with terror.

Her form loosens somewhat, Raven's grasp almost slipping free as the arm she holds becomes like electricity.

Jinx's body begins to fall, and Raven pulls, dragging her back onto the solid ground.

Jinx solidifies once more as she falls atop her, feline eyes wide with terror.

"Wh-What the f-fuck!? I was standing on it, then you put yer foot in, and suddenly I ain't on stone anym-more!" she shrieks.

Raven runs a hand through her hair, making sounds she hopes are comforting for the trembling meta.

"We need to be careful. Where our perceptions overlap should be fine, but elsewhere is unstable," Raven explains.

"Unstable nothing," she grumbles. "How the hell were you walkin' with me all this way, then?"

"You were walking, and there was no sense that my mind likely compensated. Perhaps there was, in fact, ground beneath me, or perhaps my mind created ground because it expected it to be there. It didn't occur to me until you mentioned paths that are not present for me despite the clearance from the mist that there might be things we're seeing that aren't there."

"Wait, so we can control this place? Cool! I say we just close our eyes, think about the castle real hard, and-"

" _Morpheus_ controls this place. Anything we can do with the landscape is likely to be caused on a subconscious level," Raven interrupts. "If we really expect something to be there, it will be so, but otherwise? I wouldn't willingly walk on a path that we created in such a way, personally. It would seem that the Dreaming comes differently to different minds. I should have expected it, really. We will need to go with a great deal of caution more than already expected."

"This place already sucks. Oh, and have I mentioned lately how  _lovely_  it is to have a girlfriend that can fly and teleport? Especially in situations that might end up dropping my cute ass down a cliff into some weird abyss?" Jinx muses while pressing firmly into Raven's side.

"Let's store that for times of need, shall we? I do not want to waste energy here, in case we need it later, and I do not trust the landscape I'm seeing enough to be able to navigate us through the air."

Jinx nods as they head for the solid path, both women very cautious about attempting it.

Seeing their lack of options, Raven sighs and steps on first.

They make their way down the path one cautious step after another, never getting any further away from each other than they absolutely have to.

"So, why do you think we're seeing what we are?" Jinx asks after several silent, tense moments. "No offense, but dark and gothic's  _way_  more your thing than mine."

Raven frowns in thought, the question one that's rolling around inside her own mind as well.

"You are correct, of course. If it were taking on a representation of my mind, it  _should_  just have been a larger form of Nevermore. This mist is just odd, unless somehow I'm seeing the Dreaming as it is and you aren't."

"That doesn't make any sense. If you're seeing the real world, then there's no reason I shouldn't be, too, right? And there's definitely no reason I'd be seein' Nevermore's big brother."

A thought turns Raven's grey skin even paler, the memory of their auras mixing surfacing in a blink of her eyes.

"Do you feel…  _odd_ … at all, Jinx?"

The meta raises a brow at her, an incredulous expression on her face.

"Well, yeah, I feel like any second, something's going to reach up from down there and grab my damn ankle. And it feels like somethin's watching me."

"No, I meant… Never mind, if you're physically feeling alright, it's for the best."

"What were you thinkin'?" Jinx demands.

"We arrived here as simply our energy. When I came to, our auras were mixing. It is possible that, somehow, my energy was leeched into you and influenced your mind so that what I should be seeing, you are seeing instead. But it doesn't really make sense, and trust me, if you were going through having your aura corrupted, you'd know."

"Well, you're right, that wouldn't make any sense. We throw our energies together all the time, and it's never done anythin' to my head. Maybe it's different because it's this place?"

"Possible. I would normally suggest that we lose these shells of ours and I pull my mingled energy free from you, but I do not want to risk being so loose with our souls here."

"Yeah, I'm with you. I say that we just hurry to Dracula's castle over there, talk to the not-Greek-god-god guy, and bail," the meta states with a nod in the castle's apparent direction.

Raven pulls to a stop, her eyes going wide in surprise.

Where the wall of mist had been, she now sees a castle in the distance.

She gives a low whistle at the sight, Jinx's estimation not far off.

The structure, what she can see of it, appears to be spires and towers of black and grey stone.

The mist surrounding it appears darker and even more obscuring, a nearly black haze surrounding the castle.

"I see it, a bit, as well, and I agree with your sentiment, Jinx. Either it's very large, or we're very near."

"I see somethin' up ahead. Looks like another split," Jinx muses.

They head further down, and from nowhere, two hulking masses take form before the meta.

Raven, too, sees the event, and her nonexistent pulse races.

"Are those-?"

"Damnit to the Ninth Circle," Raven interrupts.

"Yeah, I thought so. Looks like we hit the lottery," Jinx sighs. "We probably should've asked Fate if he knew anything-"

"For two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those dreams that pass through the gate of sawn ivory deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfillment. But those that come forth through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to pass, when any mortal sees them," Raven intones.

Jinx stares blankly at her lover, wondering if she's lost her mind.

"Penelope talks about them in the Odyssey," she explains with a shrug. "The Gate of Ivory is the one to avoid."

"I need to catch up on my epics," Jinx mutters. "Maybe I'll do that during our vacation."

"Oh, I assure you, your attention will not be on reading while we're away. But the problem remains, which is the Gate of Horn?"

Jinx turns her gaze back to the gates, her eyes narrowing quickly into a glare.

"Well, I don't know what the hell  _Horn_  is, but I know that ivory's white, so it's got to be the other one."

"They're both grey to me," Raven sighs. "The mist is obscuring them beyond knowing they're there. If the Gate of Horn isn't white, it is close enough here for me to be unable to tell."

"Okay, but I see one that's pretty clearly brighter than the other one."

"Fortunate," Raven muses as the meta pulls her to the left pathway.

When they reach the gate, Raven finds a strange sense of foreboding creeping along her spine.

Jinx notices the tension, a frown curling her lips.

"You alright, Rae?"

Raven shakes her head, a glare settling on the gate of utterly obscured, grey stone before her.

"Just getting a bad feeling. Perhaps the other gate is trying to make it seem that we're going into the wrong gate. Perhaps we are going into the wrong gate and it's somehow making it seem to you as though the gates are reversed. Either way, we need to go through a gate, and you're seeing more than I am. Shall we?"

"I really hate this place," Jinx mumbles.

She takes in the sight before her, a strange sensation running through her at the sight.

The gate is surrounded by a wall of pure, smooth black which seems to stretch into the sky.

Just as she contemplates having Raven just fly them around that gate, it reacts and grows.

A horrific crackling sound reaches her ears as the sinewy, black wall curves to surround them, until only the path they'd come down and the door before them is visible.

Releasing a frustrated sigh, she presses her hand onto the disturbingly warm, rough doorway of black and pushes.

The door doesn't part despite her efforts, a grunt of effort sounding as she continues getting no results.

"Do you want-"

"Nah, I've got this," Jinx interrupts with an annoyed huff.

Raven watches as the meta pulls her other hand free and begins throwing her weight behind her shoves.

"Stupid heavy gate. Seriously! Who makes a gate of solid… whatever the hell Horn is?" she complains when there's no progress.

Slightly amused, Raven places her hand next to the meta's.

Darkness stretches from her palm, wrapping around the doorway.

It slips open easily, almost sending Jinx's leaning weight sprawling to the path below.

"It's not funny," she says with a glare at Raven's slightly trembling form.

"I would beg to differ," Raven muses with a grin.

"I'll remember this later," Jinx swears as her cheeks turn pink.

"I'll look forward to it. You're thinking of things in a way you shouldn't. We are not in a physical world, nor do we really have bodies. Trying to work with things as if you were will likely always be wasted effort and energy, here," the demonling responds.

Blushing, Jinx puts her hand on the side of the gateway remaining closed.

Pink energy fires into the gate, and the door swings silently back.

Jinx gives a satisfied nod to herself, wishing for her blush to die down quickly.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Smiling, Raven takes up her hand again and they move through the gates.

As the gates slip closed behind Raven, the sense of foreboding takes on the form of a lead ball settling in her stomach…  
 ***************************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

When writing this scene, I was surprised to find that there doesn't appear to be any reference to what horn actually is. The best I could guess was that it would possibly be a material. Perhaps it was referring to actual horns, which are usually keratin and proteins surrounding bone, but if not, that's still what I went with. Anyone who knows the historical context better, feel free to correct me.

I hope you're all enjoying thus far! As always, I look forward to your input, positive or negative, and I'll see you all next time!


	47. Horn & Ivory

# XLVI. Horn & Ivory

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Several steps further on the path, Raven senses the gateway completely disappear from behind them.

The gate's vanishment is accentuated by a loud, echoing  _ring_  that sends the air around them humming.

The women tense, waiting for something to lunge out at them at the call of the gateway.

Their worries are, instead, answered by a vibrating sensation running beneath their feet.

Eyes going wide, both of them cast a glance backward.

Where mist violently swirls in a path moving for Raven, the bricks behind Jinx begin to rapidly crack and crumble down into the black void below.

Sudden pain rips through Raven's mind, and she curses as they take off running from the destruction of their pathway.

"If we picked the wrong gate, do you think it's messing with us?" Jinx huffs as they pick up speed.

"Possible, but do you really want to find out?"

"Could you fly me out if I did?"

Raven's gaze moves around them, taking in the slightly thinner haze around them with apprehension.

"I still can't see anything here. What if-"

"This place sucks, I get it," Jinx interrupts. "I'm guessing teleportation's out, too?"

"I need to use my soul-self for that feat," Raven growls. "If only I could see-"

Her statement is interrupted when she finds the pathway in front of her suddenly taking a sharp right curve and sloping downward.

As she takes the turn, her arm is yanked by Jinx, who is facing the opposite direction and seems to float on the air above her.

The two look at each other, both paling even more than normal.

"Different paths," Jinx groans.

The echoing crack of the disappearing ground stops, leaving them both on the beginnings of their respective grounds with an incredibly small, yet somehow infinite void between them.

They turn to look back, finding the path completely gone.

"We picked the wrong goddamn gate. Sonuvabitch!" Jinx snarls, her hand tightening on Raven's.

Raven nods in agreement to the sentiment, a grimace coloring her expression.

"Your path goes up?" she asks.

"Of course, like I'm assuming yours goes down. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm too annoyed to find it right now. Are you curving, too?"

Raven points in the direction of her path with a nod.

Jinx's lips press into a hard frown, and she hitches her thumb in the opposite direction.

"Am I paranoid when I think the damn place is tryin' to split us apart?" she groans.

"I'd like to say yes, but I don't think I can. If this  _isn't_ Ivory, I would be very surprised."

"The damn gate was black!" Jinx growls defensively.

"As I said, the Gate of Ivory is the gate of false dreams. It is not out of the realm of possibilities that just being in its presence could affect our perceptions. It would explain why it's the biggest threat for getting lost in this dimension."

"So now, even the damn decorations here can mess with my brain!?"

"It appears so. Clearly, I was not as informed as I thought."

Raven grows silent, sending a tentative look at the air beneath Jinx's feet.

As she stands still, a thought occurs to the meta that draws a groan from her.

"Oh, damnit! Hey, Rae, why not just do that thing you once did with bird brain? You said you could see what he saw, when he was losin' his mind. If there's anythin' that I'm okay with having in my head, it's you, and if you see everything with my eyes, then-"

"That would be… unwise… here, Jinx. We currently  _are_ our minds. What I did then was simply using my telepathy to take a small residence in his mind to see as he did. To do so here… It would likely not end well," she summarizes with a noticeable pallor to her false skin.

Jinx deflates a bit, a hard frown forming on her lips.

"I can't come up with a single good idea here! Am I always this stupid, or is it-"

"It was not a stupid idea, by any means. Were this any other plane, it would be the perfect solution to the problem we face," Raven comforts quickly. "You can't expect to immediately wrap your mind around the rules of a foreign astral plane, Jinx."

Jinx glares at her, her words meant to comfort seeming to annoy the meta, instead.

"You're figurin' shit out fast enough," she complains.

"The only reason I'm slightly better-adjusted is because of my times in Nevermore, and some slight information beforehand that was just barely enough to get us here in one piece. It is nothing to do with either of our intelligences, Jinx."

Jinx nods slightly, an embarrassed edge forming on her frown.

"I'm being a bitch. Sorry. It's just-"

"You're nothing of the sort. This place sucks. I know."

"So what's the plan?"

Raven stares at her path, glares like daggers focused on the shifting shape.

"We walk. The gates both  _do_ lead to the castle. We'll have to suck it up and head there separately."

"I don't like that plan, Rae."

"Nor do I. I'd be inclined to simply float after you, but there are too many things that can so easily go wrong. What if I run out of power without any land in sight while with you? What if I fall through your path, and we both end up plummeting to whatever horror lies beneath us? We can't risk it."

"I guess we walk, then," Jinx sighs.

With a blush creeping onto her cheeks, Raven leans across the divide between their paths and quickly kisses the meta.

When a pleased noise sounds in the back of Jinx's throat, Raven pulls away to face the disappointed glare.

"You can do better," she grouses.

"Certainly, so you'll just have to meet up with me to get something better," Raven muses with a grin.

Her expression sobers, and she squeezes her lover's hand again.

"Be careful, Jinx. I don't know what this gate might have waiting for us."

"Yeah, yeah, suspect everything and hex first, questions later. Got it," Jinx sighs. "And you, too."

Reluctantly, Raven releases her hold and gives a nod before she turns and heads down her path.

Jinx watches until she disappears from her sight, some strange wall of darkness seeming to swallow her fiancé's form as she descends.

With a huff, she turns and heads her own direction…

…..

Raven begins noticing changes, the further down the path she walks.

No matter how far down they walk, it seems to continue to spiral.

Further, the mist gives way more and more to a thick, oily black smoke as she goes lower into the realm.

Strange noises begin reaching her ears, a bizarre cacophony of screeches and roaring flames.

A bad feeling roots itself firmly into her stomach as she finally comes to a stop, her pathway abruptly ending.

The feeling grows as she looks downward, and finds that, indeed, there is land below.

A large circle of what appears, even through the smoke and mist, to be solid, blackened earth.

From it, another strip of black leads off, clearly marking her path.

Something moves around the circle, black smoke obscuring all but the land.

Clearly, the gate wants her down on the circle, and she is quickly getting the impression that she isn't going to like what she finds.

As though anticipating her inner debate, the ground rumbles beneath her and she turns to watch the pathway be swallowed by mist.

With a curse, she jumps, her body shifting to pure darkness as it descends.

She reforms into her false shell on the ground, noticing as she moves down that the air gains a decidedly acrid scent that reeks of familiarity.

The air also begins to warm with her descent, and as she takes on a fully solid form once more, she's sure the heat would draw sweat from her brow instantly if she had pores to have such reactions.

The black smoke crushes in on itself above her, completely sealing off where she'd come from.

Releasing a sigh, she turns in a circle to take in her surroundings.

And her heart skips a beat when she realizes that what she'd seen moving is an ocean of bubbling and flowing lava.

The area, save for the blurry quality the heat creates in the air, is far clearer for Raven's eyes, and in the distance she sees a large obelisk of black stone.

A slightly smaller blotch of red contrasts with the darkness, and a new awareness settles on the empath as she feels her entire body tense.

Curses in several languages, some no longer remembered by humans, slip from her as she storms down the black rock towards the obelisk.

She finds her suspicion confirmed as she reaches another large disc of ground, a new path stretching around the obelisk and into the distance before a noticeable incline.

She reaches the circle and raises her eyes, finding four hellish slits of red glaring back at her.

"This gate is fairly unimaginative," she muses to the hulking mass of withered red flesh.

Trigon's body is smaller than Raven remembers.

Further, the large muscles that had made up his form during their last encounter have turned to withered, sagging flesh, as though he were a human who'd been starved.

All four of his limbs are held out and pressed to the stone of the obelisk by glowing, ethereal cuffs of black energy, the skin where they came into contact unhealthily ashen compared to the rest of his skin.

His previously white hair is now grey and withered, forming straw-like strands to frame his head.

Despite the apparent weakness to his form, he trains a confident smirk at her that is entirely offset by his glaring eyes.

" **Daughter. What a…** _ **pleasant**_ **surprise. Have you come to siphon even more from me, in person now?** "

Shaking her head, Raven continues to walk past the obelisk.

When she reaches the center, his eyes glow more brightly, and a beam of red light lances down at her.

It turns to red vapor before ever reaching her, the bands holding him turning darker at the same moment.

She stares back at him with an utter lack of being impressed, a brow arcing.

"You should probably not waste the energy. It seems that you don't have that much to spare," she muses as she continues walking.

" **Certainly true. You've been using my powers enough recently for the both of us,** " he growls.

The statement gives her pause, her eyes returning to him.

" _My_ powers, you mean. The power I used to destroy you even after you'd rescinded what you'd previously given me."

She releases an annoyed huff, her eyes moving back to the path.

"I'm arguing with a figment of imagination. Ridiculous. If this is the gate's way of trying to throw me off-balance and confuse me, it would have served better to manifested you at the top of your game, instead of that husk, and having you attack me relentlessly."

He sneers at her, the smoke fading from around his eyes.

" **The Gate of Ivory does not work so simply, at least when humans aren't concerned, and I assure you that there is no such convenient trickery involved in** _ **this**_ **,** _ **daughter**_ ," he snarls.

" _Ri-ight_. Because of course you were sent to some hole in Morpheus's domain when I decimated you," Raven challenges.

" **Dream's territory is as connected as any other to other places and times. Evidently, even the depths of your soul are not out of its reach**."

"I would vomit at the thought of having you locked within my soul, if I had a stomach at the moment."

He laughs at that, the sound sending a ripple of revulsion through Raven despite her professed lack of digestive system.

" **How very ladylike, daughter. So you embrace even my personality as you attempt to assimilate me into you. As you already have one of my sons.** "

Raven glares at him, sure her face would be red in irritation if she had blood.

"I'll have to nip that in the bud. Though  _ladylike_ has never been something you could accuse me of being."

" **Certainly, though I understand that humans are far less attracted to those qualities in their women.** "

"A non-issue, as I have a betrothed."

" **Oh, yes. Far be it from me to give fatherly advice, but I advise you rethink that decision. Just think of how many females I went through trying to sire you and my sons. Being so attached to a human, especially one incapable of granting offspring, will only damage you in the end. It wouldn't do to press such dangers on that chaotic metahuman when she betrayed you and you ended up killing everything over a petty spat** ," he laughs.

Raven's hands turn to fists, irrational amounts of anger bursting forth like a dam.

"First of all, giving such advice would require you to be a father, which I made abundantly clear when I was dismantling you that you are certainly not. And secondly, unlike you, I actually give a damn about beings other than myself. The reason they died is because you put no effort into really trying to  _not_  turn them to splatters on a wall."

His eyes widen a fraction at that, her own orbs pulsing with light and turning slightly more red than indigo.

" **Don't tell me you're actually** _ **serious**_ **about that whelp. You can sire no offspring-** "

"I would never willingly pass your genes on to another generation, even if it  _were_  a possibility. And it just goes to show that I'm not an instinct-driven beast like you. I've had enough of this. I have somewhere to be," she huffs as she again begins walking.

His laughter sends the ground trembling, his head thrown back.

" **You still think yourself so different, so** _ **superior**_ **, even as you continue draining this part of me dry to get more power. Utterly ridiculous! You can act high and mighty all you want, but it will only end poorly if you continue to deny that you** _ **are**_ **my sire, in every way that's important!** "

She shakes her head, an irritated glare locking onto the ground.

"I am superior to you  _in spite_ of your genetics. My power is originated in you, but it is  _entirely_ my own, and has been for a very long time."

" **And yet, you don't deny that you still, even as we speak, leech my power from me. Surely you don't think that these recent times of surging back into fighting shape when on the verge of death is from mere** _ **will**_ **and some good fortune alone**!"

Raven shrugs, an icy smirk curling her lips as she stares back into his glare.

"If this is the gate's work, it's irrelevant, and I've simply been indulging in its wishes. If this is reality, and I'm truly sucking you dry of the remnants of power you possess, then I see you as nothing but a talking battery. Even if I  _am_ draining some remnant of Trigon buried within my soul, that's what it amounts to, both from what you're suggesting and what I've experienced. You give me no power, you would simply be a more aware version of Jinx's amulet, giving me energy to use my own powers."

His eyes narrow to hateful slits, red smoke rising from them.

" **I should rend you to ashes**!"

"You can certainly try," Raven muses. "I beat you on a physical plane where you should have been stronger. Even if you  _are_  real, why do you think you can beat me in a mental plane, especially if this truly  _is_ my own soul?"

He bares his fangs in response, a throaty growl sounding.

"Exactly. If that will be all, I've wasted enough time already, and must be on my way."

She finally reaches the other side of the disc, making her way up the sloping path without another word to her father, his entire body shaking in rage…

…

Jinx shudders as the air gets cooler as she ascends, the black smoke thinning with each step she takes.

The void below suddenly turns brighter, becoming a terrifying lake of red lava.

Spouts of fire launch high into the air, though nowhere near high enough to reach her.

She grunts and quickly drops to a knee on the stone, holding on as it violently shakes back and forth.

As she hangs on, a noise reaches her ears that, were she asked, she would swear was a monster bellowing in rage.

Taking a large gulp of air, she bends her head over the side of her path and looks down.

Far, far below, she spots a massive black tower on a circle of rock, though even her enhanced vision can't tell her more than this information.

As she squints, trying to figure out what she's looking at anyway, another spout of fire releases high into the air, and black smoke suddenly swirls to obscure her vision.

Shivering, she wonders if the vague dot of white she'd seen on the ground had been her imagination, or if it had really been her lover.

Shaking her head, she returns her vision to her own path, putting off wondering until she has Raven there to ask directly.

She quickly begins climbing again, the incline in her path growing steeper and steeper until she has to treat it as climbing a mountain.

The stone becomes leeched of color the higher she climbs, turning from black to a dull white.

The smoke entirely disappears into blue mist as she rises, and the stones become noticeably more slippery in her grip.

Just as she begins to worry that she'll slip and plummet to her death, she reaches the top of her climb.

Her hands clasp onto the edge and she pulls, easily vaulting herself up and onto her back on the flat ground above.

She lay there, huffing in deep breaths as her body acts as though her heart is there thudding in her chest.

As soon as she realizes she doesn't currently have said organ, the sensation vanishes, and she leaps back to her feet.

"I hate this place," she grunts.

She begins walking once more, finding herself in the obscured landscape Raven had described.

The more she walks through the obscured land, carefully testing each step in case the mist covers some landfall, the more she realizes how right Raven had been.

At least in the scary hellscape, she'd been able to see where she was going more than a few steps ahead of herself.

Something watches her as she continues down the path, the sensation creeping along her spine to draw a shudder from her.

The feeling only grows stronger the further she moves, and she soon loses all sense of her surroundings as the path continues on forever before her.

The path below her suddenly drops, and she screeches as her body falls several feet.

She grunts at the sudden impact of her face on the stone.

Except, whereas she expects pain, instead her face temporarily turns to pink static.

She quickly jerks back to her feet and she feels her shell harden again, an embarrassed tint forming on her cheeks.

A quiet chuckle sounds nearby, sending her immediately into a tensed crouch.

The mist seems to clear around her, revealing another platform underneath her feet.

Off the side of the platform is another pathway, presumably leading to the grey tower she can barely make out in the distance that still reminds her of a horror movie cliché.

And between her and the path is Raven.

She begins to relax, only to stop when she notices that the woman has four hellish red lenses focused on her, and the Mark of Skaath glows brightly where her chakra gem should be.

Something presses into her awareness, and with widening eyes, she dives forward, rolling to the middle of the platform.

She stares in shock as shadows coil up where she'd been and crush inward, decimating the stone she'd been standing on as though it were tissue paper.

Another chuckle sounds, and her eyes narrow on her lover.

"Okay, now this stupid gate's officially pissing me off," she growls.

Her eyes flash with power, and she takes aim at the creature parading as her lover only to find her gone.

A gasp escapes her as darkness suddenly coalesces around her throat, lifting her whole body off the ground and turning her to face it.

"Raven" levels an amused smirk at her, her left arm nothing but darkness as it continues to coil around the meta.

"The gate? No, as much as you wish it to be true, this isn't the gate's doing. I assure you, Nicole, this is  _very_ real."

Jinx's response is cut off as the other hand lashes forward and slams into her stomach.

Air escapes her and she retches, her body shaky from the bone-crushing impact.

With a growl, she focuses her mind, and the sensation immediately disappears.

Her body melts into pink sparks, which slip free of "Raven's" grasp before reforming into her shell.

The creature's eyes widen a bit, her amused smirk gone.

"You're finally getting it. Good girl."

Sparks of her hex magic release around her at the condescending tone, her eyes turning to solid pink.

She points at "Raven" and this time, releases a lancing bolt of the power before she teleports away.

The creature's body turns black, and the shadowy form wraps around the hexbolt before snuffing it out in a column of pink smoke.

Immediately, weakness sweeps through the meta, her knees wobbling and nausea rushing violently through her.

By the time her mind catches up with her lack of stomach, the creature is again in Raven's form, this time with a pulse of pink within its eyes.

"I wouldn't do that, too much, Jinx. You'll wear yourself out  _far_ faster than you'll like, and anything you lose here  _won't_ be something you want to lose. If you keep going, you might possibly even throw something like the memory of how to breathe or even think at me, and that would be quite terrible on your body and mind both."

Jinx refuses to let the terror rushing through her show, her expression locked in a stony mask as she meets the creature's gaze evenly.

The swirling mass of darkness that covers Raven's arm shifts and turns into a large claw of black smoke as the meta watches.

"I'm damn sure going to kill you, but first, I really want to know what the deal is with this stupid gate. Really, what the hell!? It couldn't do better than the person I routinely practice fighting with?"

"Raven" makes a mocking sound in the back of her throat, an amused sneer curving her lips.

"I am interested in why you're  _so_ sure I'm a figment of the gate's creation," she muses.

Jinx shrugs, her eyes not daring to leave the creature for even a second.

"Because you're trying to kill me, for one. Because you're bantering and being obnoxious also sells it for me."

"Raven" tilts her head to the side, her gaze taking on a quality not unlike a scientist fascinated by a rare specimen.

"We're in a realm of fantasies. What makes you so sure that you're not being toyed with by the gate? What if the real Raven  _is_  right here, in my body, and is actually attacking you because she, likewise, thinks that  _you_  are a fake? Everything I'm saying could be an illusion put into your head."

Jinx blanches, her eyes going wide in shock.

The creature acts on the distraction, sending a blade of black energy straight at the meta.

She dives to the side to avoid the attack, almost falling straight off the side of the platform.

Eyes wide, Jinx plants her hands into the ground and shoves backward, sending herself into a somersault back onto her feet behind Raven.

Her fist shoots at the back of the creature's head and jerks to a harsh stop.

For a moment, the way the creature's head is leaned forward after the impact makes her think she has, indeed, slammed home.

And then, she realizes darkness is slinking up her arm, coiling its way up to her shoulder.

She begins to repeat her previous escape, and the soul-self reacts as though expecting it.

Her eyes widen when the darkness explodes outwards and forms a net, trapping her from head to toe.

Memories spring forth of cloying dirt, and her heart begins beating rapidly against her chest.

In her panic, she forgets it isn't real.

Her head is released, and a blood-red Raven stands smirking at her.

"You were correct, at any rate. I am  _not_  Raven. She's already gotten free, leaving you behind to die, even though you're now both on the same level of this realm now. What I am is one of Dream's defenses, given form by the Gate of Ivory. That I took on the form of your worst nightmare, and that it takes on this form is… amusing."

"The gate must just have rust in the brain," Jinx huffs.

As she argues, though, she does notice the fact that there are now two paths where there had been one previously, and neither is where she remembered.

The soul-self crushes in on her, drawing a pained wheeze from deep in her chest and bringing her attention back.

"I do not think so. For whatever reason, the sight of your betrothed in her true form, acting true to her real nature, is enough to completely put you off-balance. She didn't even blink at what was thrown her way. Honestly, you're so lost now that I could do nothing further and still not worry about you  _ever_ reaching the castle. But while I'm a construct, I also have some autonomy based on what form I take, and it seems this form wants to kill you."

"Bullshit," Jinx snarls while struggling against the dark cage wrapping around her.

"Oh, I'm assuming the real her doesn't, at least consciously, but your nightmare seems to be that she will be powerless in the face of primal instincts which this form releases. As shown by her recent descent into acting very like stories she's told of her father. And  _that_ is what this form is, and far be it from me to disappoint expect-"

Jinx's body turns to sparks and she slips free of the crushing hold.

The creature's eyes widen when the sparks launch straight for her.

" _Phansa sakatā_!" Jinx's mind screams.

A flicker of pink hits the ground at the creature's feet, and suddenly stones rise to encompass "Raven."

Jinx's mind feels a pressure building as she rushes at the trapped creature, the body unable to escape her magic.

She reaches "Raven" and lashes her hand out.

The creature stares in shock as pink light encompasses her fist, just before the impact.

When her strike lands, an audible  _snap_  sounds, and her body falls back, bending at the knee.

The spine of the creature bends unnaturally as its body moves while its lower body is held inert.

Even though it should be in horrific agony, it simply stares at Jinx in shock, the meta's aura shining brilliantly around her.

"I ain't afraid of Rae losing her shit, and I  _definitely_ ain't afraid of an imaginary monster trying to screw with me by imitating her. Like I said, the gate screwed up. And now, you've insulted both of us, because the gate's probing around in my skull and thought it'd be a good idea for distracting me. Well, it worked, but it's going to backfire, big-time. I didn't get the chance to kill Brother Blood, or Psimon, or even Wrath, and I'm just pissed off enough now to use you in place of them to take out a  _lot_ of baggage."

As she speaks, she approaches the limp form, her fists both clenched in spheres of hex magic.

"Tell me which path gets me to Raven,  _now_."

"Or what?" the creature challenges with a mocking laugh.

Jinx sneers at her, anger overriding her senses as she stares at the embodiment of her mind being toyed with.

She goes to a knee next to the creature, a hand fisting in rough strands of oily purple hair.

"Physical pain to intimidate won't work on me," it mocks.

In response, Jinx places her hand on the creature's cheek, and the pink glow quickly expands from her palm onto the rough, almost bone-feeling flesh.

Its eyes narrow as its skin begins breaking down, revealing swirling darkness underneath, the flesh turning black around her touch.

"If you were Raven, I don't think something like this would do much, honestly, but we've established that you aren't even close. I wonder what it feels like, to have chaos magic put directly into your aura when you aren't conditioned to handle it," she muses.

Her hand begins pressing through the crack in the creature's shell, pink sparks zipping inside.

"Either you'll do it or you won't. Any sane person wouldn't willingly leave themselves vulnerable enough as to directly attack a soul with their own mind while here," it reasons with a smug smirk.

"And a  _sane_ person wouldn't have come with no preparation to a dimension where death is a bad step away, on a recommendation from the devil," Jinx retorts. "Five seconds. You tell me where I'm going and disappear, or I throw a hex bolt and we both take our chances on how it turns out."

"The left path," the creature winces.

Jinx's hand pulls back and her hex magic recedes, a migraine building behind her eyes while it slowly returns back to her.

The creature doesn't hesitate, its entire body turning black and vanishing into the cracks of the stone.

Without a thought, Jinx heads down the opposite path…

…..

Raven turns at the sound of footsteps, seeing vibrant pink light through the mist.

Jinx soon resolves from the obscuring vapors, her eyes narrowed as they focus on her.

The look persists until she's at Raven's side, the empath's brow rising at her.

A thought occurring to her, she quickly pulls the meta in for a kiss.

With no lungs, they don't break apart until their auras begin merging.

Both of them are pleasantly flushed when they do break apart.

"You got here safely. I did promise  _better_ , I believe," Raven offers with a grin.

Jinx's glare is gone, her arms wrapping tightly around her.

"I'll say. You, uh, didn't happen to see anything kinda' screwed up here, did you?"

Raven frowns at her.

"Screwed up is relative… What did you see? For a point of comparison," she inquires.

Jinx sends a glare over her shoulder, a pulse of pink light flaring up around her entire body for a moment.

"The gate was messing with me. Somethin' took on your shape and tried to kill me. And you?"

Raven blanches, her eyes widening in surprise.

Her hold on the meta tightens, hands pressing into the small of her back.

"I wasn't aware that it could do something like that."

"We aren't aware of a ton of shit," Jinx grouses. "But it's fine. I scared it off, after threatening to break its soul. Didn't come close to bein' the real thing, once I was too pissed to put much thought into my body being real. And you?"

"Apparently I have Trigon inside my soul," Raven muses with a shrug. "Or the gate was trying to send me into a breakdown, or something, by suggesting such a thing, at any rate."

Jinx tenses, her eyes narrowing slightly before she quickly wipes the expression away.

"Yeah, screw this gate, and this stupid, misty hellhole. Let's warn Morpheus, tell him to work on his decor, and get the hell out of here," Jinx growls.

Her anger surprises Raven, though she doesn't voice the concern as Jinx storms off ahead of her…  
 ***********************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Phansa sakatā- Hindi: "Be trapped"

Bit of a longer chapter this time around. I have mixed, but mostly good, feelings about this chapter after the three re-writes it went through. I hope you're all enjoying, as much as I am writing it.

As always, be sure to give me your thoughts, be they positive or negative! I greatly enjoy getting feedback to know what is and isn't working as intended for the audience. See you all next time!


	48. Endless

# XLVII. Endless

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"This copy of me… It got to you, somehow," Raven reasons after seemingly an eternity of tense silence.

Jinx's pace falters for a moment, though the meta refuses to turn back.

She hates to admit it, but the gate had gotten to her, and she becomes angrier with every second she fails to simply shrug its claim off.

"I kicked its ass, and that's all that matters," Jinx nearly growls in return when she realizes Raven is expecting a response. "Let's just keep walking."

"We can still talk as we go. You're angry, and that takes a  _lot_  to accomplish, Ji-"

Jinx whirls on her, eyes narrowed at the psychic.

The claim sends a spark of burning anger off in the meta, though she's entirely aware that her lover is in no way deserving of being its victim.

"Are you in my head, now, too? Don't fucking tell me what I'm feeling!" she snarls nonetheless.

Raven blinks in surprise at the hostility in the meta's tone.

"Jinx, I would have to be blind to miss that you're angry," she reasons. "Please, tell me what's wrong."

Jinx's glare narrows further, both at her lover's placating tone and her hands, raised in surrender.

The combination makes her feel like a snapping animal, and it ratchets her building emotions firmly into a fury that her mind is entirely not used to coping with.

She steps closer to Raven, her muscles coiled tight as her rationality slips somewhat.

"This place is a living damn nightmare, for me. An entire  _world_ that can get an open window into my head. A gate, just a frame for two damn doors, rooted around in my brain and manifested one of my worst nightma-"

She suddenly cuts herself off, eyes going wide to match Raven's own expression.

"I'm one of your worst nightmares?" Raven questions, unable to even attempt hiding the hurt in her voice.

Jinx's eyes close, a deep sigh sounding as she forces herself to relax.

Her anger is snuffed out in an instant under the wounded sound of her lover's tone.

When she again opens her eyes, the glow to the orbs is from a different emotion entirely.

She winces at the feelings she sees in the demonling's gaze, and a hand cautiously rises to clasp her shoulder.

"No, Raven, I'm sorry.  _You_  aren't a nightmare, at least to me. But, if I'm completely level about it, lately, you've been acting a whole lot different than  _you_."

"I apologized for the Oblivion-"

"This goes back way before that, Rae. This stuff's been happening since Wotan. Every time you've gone hellion since then, you've been pulling shit off that…"

She trails off, the slight glow to Raven's eyes that has nothing to do with her magic giving her reason to think of her words carefully.

"I mean, look, it's amazing, the things you keep doing. And I sure as hell ain't complainin' that you keep kickin' evil's ass left and right. When I said I wasn't afraid of you messin' with me, or goin' evil, I meant it, and it's still just as true."

"But…?" Raven reluctantly prompts, a slight waver to her voice.

Jinx winces again, her eyes unable to meet the demonling's.

"But… look, I hadn't really been putting much thought to this, mostly because, again, I've got no reason to worry about you and it's all been directed at the monsters we keep facing… But what that doppelgänger bitch said had to have come from somewhere in my head. And now that she brought it up, and now that I'm thinking about it, it's kind of true."

" _What_  is true?" Raven demands, though her hurt tone still softens her voice.

Jinx's mind plays scenes back before her, her eyes finally meeting Raven's once more.

"Okay, look, this is going to piss you off, and I want you to listen to everything before you jump down my throat, okay?"

The worry in the metahuman's tone surprises Raven, confusion quickly marring with the hurt she feels.

"We've never danced around issues, Jinx," the empath sighs in exasperation. "If there's something you think that could put you, or any others in danger, you're better off telling me. I call you my spotter for a reason."

Nodding, Jinx brings her free hand to the other shoulder, seeming to hold Raven in place.

"Like I said, it's nothin' like that. There's just some things that, when I really think about it, are really kinda' messed up. Back when we were getting our asses beaten by Wotan, you started changing reality around us when your magic and his went head-to-head, for starters," Jinx begins.

"A very poor reaction, to be sure."

"Sure. Except, you fight with me at your back all the time. If shit like that happened, we'd have been blown to some weird pocket dimension months ago. So it wasn't just his chaos magic that did it."

"I cannot alter reality," Raven argues as she begins to realize the direction of her lover's thoughts.

"Clearly, you can, 'cause you did back then. And it makes sense. There're probably a  _lot_  of things you  _can_ do but never did or even thought you could do."

She doesn't say anything related to why it would make sense, but the slight narrowing to Raven's eyes tell the meta she didn't need to.

"Then, there was dispelling the illusion around the Avalon, too. I don't know much about the Celtic stuff, but I  _do_ know that there's magic around that place that's older than old."

"It was already weakened," Raven reasons.

"Sure, but not enough. I didn't even know there was somethin' there until you broke it, meaning it was still  _way_ above your average cloaking shit. Sure, it knocked you on your ass, but it didn't kill you, which considering what it was and what shape you were in going there to begin with, it absolutely should've."

Raven's eyes go wide, and Jinx immediately winces as her words replay in her mind.

"Okay, don't take that wrong, because I know that  _really_ didn't come out right. You know that sure as hell ain't what I meant. What I'm saying is that there's no good explanation for how you could've survived something like that, as a mortal being," she quickly follows up.

Raven nods in acceptance, though the wounded expression remains nonetheless.

"Then, there's the perpetual motion shit you've been pulling, always seeming to get new energy when you shouldn't have any left."

Jinx raises her hand, cutting off Raven's next explanation.

"I told you listen to everything first, okay? You got fresh out of your healing trance, and proceeded to take Morgaine Le Fey down. I was nearly passed out, so I can't be entirely sure, but I'm guessin' it wasn't too hard, right?"

A weight begins settling in Raven's stomach, the queasiness remaining even as she actively thinks about her lack of organs at the moment.

The fact that Jinx's clear thought process so perfectly aligned with her father's own words, real or imagined, was not helping her mind calm.

"She… she'd overextended herself , between Nimue, Etrigan, you, her summonings, and her spell. She was in even lesser condition for fighting than myself."

Jinx's flat stare perfectly shows Raven how little water her continued excuses hold to the meta.

"Yeah, that all softened her up. But you still took an immortal to her knees and put on a good enough show that she figured giving up was better than the alternative. Then, there was Jared-"

Raven's eyes narrow in reaction, the expression vanishing as she turns her gaze to the stones below them instead.

Jinx doesn't miss the response, though, and tightens her hold on the empath's body.

The cape's fabric under her touch is noticeably less solid than a moment earlier, the material seeming to turn to shadow for a bare instant.

"You killed him, and then, his mojo shifted to you. I'm not proud of it, but we both know there's somewhat of a body count under me, and I've  _never_ taken on the powers of the metas I took out, Raven."

A phantom of Raven's heart hammers away at her chest, her eyes steadfastly remaining locked on their feet.

"Energy doesn't usually just transfer to the nearest medium," she sighs.

"Exactly. And yet, you've had it happen to you  _twice_. And it can't be a coincidence that both times-"

"I am  _not_ -"

"-it was related to Trigon," Jinx continues undeterred.

Raven's head jerks as though she'd been slapped.

"You took the power from your bloodline, Rae. First, with the old man, then with Wrath. In fact, it's how Wrath found you in the first place when we were done with Snow, that your demonic power was lightin' you up like a neon sign for him. Then, there was that fight itself. He put you into a solid brick wall. Believe me, I know you're basically a walking tank, but even still, that should've taken you down for a lot longer than a second. Hell, I've even seen Superman get dazed from a hit like that!"

"I-"

"The more you keep pulling that side of yourself out, the more you're getting to be like… well… like a  _demon_. Like-"

"Do  _not_ finish that sentence the way I think you are going to," Raven warns harshly, eyes narrowed nearly to slits.

"You can alter reality. You, in the span of a few hours, were firebombed, teleported us who knows how far across the world a few times, were drained by using Excalibur, fought even like that, then you added on all the shit across the pond. You can chalk a lot up to adrenaline and being a powerful magician, but that all goes  _way_  beyond stretchin' it. Not to forget that you threatened everyone at the Oblivion with a pretty terrible death, apologies and demon-roid-rage notwithstanding, and were having a chat with the devil like he was just any other supernatural informant."

Jinx notices a lot more of Raven's body turning to shadow, her agitation clear.

She's sure that, were they in their own bodies, there would have been multiple explosions around the psychic as her soul-self lashed out.

She puts her hands on Raven's cheeks, forcing the empath to meet her gaze.

"And you've been putting on the ice queen act a few times recently, like nothin's getting to you, like back when you were afraid that shit would let Rage loose on everything around. There's no doubt that you're way,  _way_ on the other side of Trigon, and I, for one, will never have that doubt. But Raven, you  _can't_ look at all that and say that you're stayin' completely you. That's what's been sittin' somewhere in the back of my mind, what the stupid gate pulled up, but whatever. Then you went and told me that  _you_ saw Trigon telling you he's actually in your head. You can see where I'm gettin' it from, right?"

The tension continues building in Raven's stomach, even as she realizes the logic behind her lover's statements.

Noticing the state of most of her shell, the empath focuses her mind on returning to being completely solid.

With her attention diverted thusly, the fear creeping up her false spine slowly dissipates.

When she's solid once more, she gives the meta a nod in acknowledgment.

"What you're saying, what this copy of myself evidently said, I do not have an argument against."

Seeing the growing horror in Raven's eyes, Jinx quickly pulls her into a comforting embrace.

"Look, we'll hash this out when we're back in our bodies. It's not like you'll suddenly turn into your family, even if there was any reason to worry about it. I've known you're a demon for a long time, so it's not like somethin' new's going to suddenly spring up and kills us both if you get more like what people think a demon's like. We should finish what we came here to do, and then, we can go somewhere nice and quiet, and you can have a serious freakout somewhere that won't throw us on our asses when things start breaking. It's like you said with taking over Jared's powers; if you know somethin's there, you can correct for it. I'm sorry I got angry, okay?"

A thought occurs to Raven, then, a harsh grimace twisting her expression.

"Your anger is justified, Jinx," Raven sighs. "The same reason this place sets you so on edge is the same reason I try avoiding some of my powers. Which could be seen as me denying a part of myself, as I did before, and given what it resulted in before I merged my soul together…"

Jinx blinks in surprise, a sense of foreboding settling into her.

"What? Like, you've got another Rage in your head?"

Raven shrugs, looking decidedly uncomfortable and afraid.

"Possibly. I will need to enter Nevermore to be positive, and I need to be grounded in my body to do so safely. The issue of me actually having him in my soul may very well just be the gate's trick, and once I know for sure, I'll know what I need to deal with. You're right, when looking at everything as one long event, it does not make for a very pleasing image."

She grabs Jinx's hand, warmth radiating between them as both calm down.

"We will deal with everything else later. For now, we focus on keeping the keys from them," she states before setting off down their path once again.

The meta takes notice of the mist, which seems to recede around them as they move closer to the the growing silhouette of the castle looming over them.

When they reach the castle itself, they realize that, until then, there had been a slight humming sound in the air.

The deafening silence around the structure makes them aware of the previously present sound, and its absence is shockingly grating on their senses.

In a ring around the behemoth of black and grey stone, not even the mist seems willing to come close.

Raven's eyes move constantly around them as they approach, both of them giving anxious sparks of color from their bodies.

"Fate mentioned gatekeepers, right?" Jinx asks nervously, their previous stresses entirely forgotten in the face of their new wariness.

"Three magical creatures," Raven agrees.

"Does this feel like a huge trap to you?" the meta demands, her body coiled tight as a spring as they finally reach the massive doors.

"It feels far too easy, to be certain. Of course, it  _is_ possible, this being Morpheus's domain and all, that he already knew we were here and simply gave us permission to enter his castle, which would mean no creatures."

"And if, somehow, somethin' happened to get here before us with an army, and kill them ahead of us?"

"There would likely be more noticeable damage around us… but are you eager to take such a chance?"

In response, Jinx's eyes flash pink, her hand going against the door.

"Agreed," Raven quips before her own body pulses with dark light.

The doors slip open, loud, metallic screeches flooding the air in a horrendous cacophony.

Both women's jaws clamp tight, eyes twitching at the agonizingly loud sound after the previous silence.

"Okay, I think we were invited. There's no way in hell that  _anything_  in this place didn't hear somethin' like that," Jinx groans.

Raven nods, though her body remains ignited in black flames as they step through the threshold.

Standing a few steps within is a figure seemingly carved from marble.

If not for the glowing light within his eyes, which Jinx initially thinks is heavily surrounded in black makeup before realizing the skin itself is black, the meta would be inclined to think he actually is a statue.

As that light focuses on her, though, Jinx feels something in her mind tightening, a sense of dread taking root firmly in her.

Raven bristles at the same sensation, though she immediately releases her tight hold on her magic, lest she end up getting herself turned to dust.

The three remain staring at each other for a small eternity, no sound passing through the air in the once-more silent domain.

Jinx uses the opportunity to take in the appearance of what an Endless looks like.

His guise does not disappoint in terms of intimidation.

Standing at nearly seven feet tall, the black robe draping him may as well be a curtain from an old king's chamber.

The fabric moves around him as though alive, and the light around them seems to be absorbed into it, making it appear that much darker.

The effect carries over to his hair and eyes, both seeming like shining obsidian due to the sparking light marking where his irises are.

His body is thin and tall, reminding her very much of a scarecrow's figure, though Jinx notices distinctive rippling beneath the robe marking wiry, powerful muscle.

The stringy mop of hair on his head, seeming as though it was the result of sticking a fork in a power outlet, sticks out in every direction to frame his gaunt face.

The darkness of everything about him is harshly offset by the corpse-like pallor to his white skin.

"You've mostly wasted a trip, I'm afraid," he finally speaks, breaking Jinx from her stare.

His voice is low and strangely melodic, as though merely hearing him speak is intended to put any mortal to sleep.

Jinx's eyes start slipping closed before she realizes it, only for her to suddenly jerk her head to the side.

Raven's fear keeps her from the same lulled sensation, though only barely.

Clearly, her method for dealign with the devil is not going to work with the Endless.

"What do you mean we've wasted a trip? The Sons of Trigon are coming for them. We had to warn you, to make sure-"

He raises a hand, Raven's mouth immediately snapping closed in response.

"I assure you, I know. It would take far more than a handful of demons to kill an Endless. The odds would be very much against them to begin with. And ultimately, they, too, would have wasted a trip."

"You… don't have the keys, do you?" Raven groans as she pieces his statement together in her suddenly tired mind.

Curses in multiple languages begin rolling through her mind, the sentiment more than matched by her fiancé.

"I do not have the keys," Morpheus agrees. "Not anymore. I did, for a time, when Lucifer took his leave. But I've since handed them over to a pair of angels."

"I do not understand. Everyone thinks that you have them," Raven argues. "What point was there in so much wasted-"

He again cuts her off, this time with a mere narrowing of his eyes.

"John Constantine knows only second-hand information, and Lucifer is not as…  _in the loop_ … as he deigns to believe."

Jinx groans, her fingers flying to pinch the bridge of her nose as though it will save her from the horrific headache building behind her eyes.

"So we're a step behind.  _Again_. Son of a-"

"You said the Sons of Trigon  _would_ have wasted a trip. I regretfully have to ask. What do you mean?" Raven asks, though her heavy sigh signals how much she agrees with the meta's sentiment.

Her heart sinks when Morpheus shakes his head.

"They are receiving their information directly from another of your line, one who resides actively within Hell. Though they, too, were not given perfect intelligence, either, it seems."

The strange glint to his eyes ratchets Raven's tension even higher, the empath suddenly fighting against her hands tightening to clenched fists.

The same sensation that had overtaken Lucifer in their discussion forms once again, the creature before them evidently also looking into somewhere she can't even fathom.

"They believed there to be only one key, and so, they went after only half of those with them. They managed to summon and intimidate Ramiel, a smart but unfortunately cowardly angel. They quickly realized that there are, in fact, two keys, which are halves of the single key they assumed to be in existence. They, as we speak, are making their way to the angel of silence, Duma, the holder of the other key and currently the true leader of Hell."

The claim nearly makes Raven hunch in on herself, eyes widening in horror as she continues staring at the terrible messenger before them…  
 ***********************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Not really much to say on this chapter. I did find that depicting Dream's speech, which in the comics is offset by way of having his text bubbles normally written while everyone else is given block text, was surprisingly difficult, so I mostly just went with making him wordy. Also, this was far less focused on the interaction with Dream than the previous two scenes had been in my original plot draft. I realized when I started this chapter that it probably wasn't a good idea to just mention that Jinx is actually afraid of Raven, despite her protests to the contrary, and leave it hanging, unless I wanted to go for more of a melodramatic story for the characters.

Let me know your thoughts, good or bad, as always, and I'll see you all next time!


	49. Chance

# XLVIII. Chance

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"You said they're making their way to Duma," Jinx points out. "As in… they're in Hell, right now?... kind of making their way?"

"Once Ramiel was dragged up, Duma realized what was happening. They will not be summoning him, now that he's aware of the danger," Morpheus responds.

It snaps Raven from her stupor, indigo eyes narrowing on the floor.

"There is no easy coming back once someone enters that realm."

He nods, seemingly fully aware of her line of thought before she can make it.

"If it were, the key would have no purpose. And yet, they will nevertheless make such an attempt in their quest for the key."

Something in Raven's eyes sets alarm bells blaring off in Jinx's mind, and she turns to level a glare on her.

"Rae, we are  _not_ fucking-"

"They  _will_ attempt it. Future tense. Can you tell me where their portal will be, so I can kill them before they're able to  _make_ such an attempt?" Raven inquires of the Endless, seemingly ignoring the irate meta.

Jinx blinks in surprise, a large sigh of relief leaving her.

"You misunderstand. They're currently in Hell, but they are only presently making their path so that they  _will_ make the attempt for the key. Can you not simply move between the walls? walls to come to planet Earth from your home dimension, as well as this realm of mine."

Raven winces, surprised at her surprise over the being's knowledge.

"I… can get into Hell," she admits. "But I have no way of knowing whether or not, once there, I will be capable of likewise getting  _out_. That is a risk I would rather not take. There are  _many_ entities down there which would find great entertainment in making me suffer in horrific ways, for a foreseeable eternity. If I can stop my brothers beforehand, I would prefer it."

"I suppose you certainly could stop them, were you to know their destination. However-"

The air around them suddenly goes cold, the sensation reaching down to the women's very souls.

Silver mist suddenly floods the room around them, the vapors seeming to have weight to them unlike anything they'd experienced in the Dreaming.

Jinx tenses despite the chills rocking her form as the mist slowly coalesces and takes on a human form.

The spiral of vapors becomes a thin pillar, and suddenly a burst of similarly colored light floods the room.

When the women can see once again, another living piece of marble stands before them.

The woman seems, to Jinx, like the polar opposite of Morpheus's form, despite the similar power and statuesque body.

Where the man is tall and wiry, she is of average height and has an incredibly athletic form.

Black clothes wrap around her form, showing off the figure perfectly.

Against her black tank top, a necklace holding a silver ankh gleams harshly.

The same obsidian hair graces the new figure's form, though it takes on a sleek curtain going past her shoulders instead of his own mop.

Dark kohl lines her eyes, the makeup curving into a small hook beneath the right.

Her hands are encased in black gloves, combining with the rest of her appearance to form quite a picture.

In any other setting, Jinx would be inclined to think of the newcomer as simply a goth on her way to a club.

There was, she has to admit, even a disturbing resemblance to Raven the few times she'd managed to drag the empath to a club with her.

In Dream's castle, she seems like a monster masquerading in human flesh.

Jinx's eyes spark pink instinctually, her form losing its solidity as her power rises up.

Raven immediately grabs hold of the energy, her eyes wide in terror.

The power rippling from the strange woman is even more overwhelming to the empath than Morpheus's own.

Fortunately, the woman takes in Jinx's display with an amused smile, rather than the glare that Morpheus levels on her lover.

"I have that effect," the woman muses.

Her voice is much higher than Morpheus's, and the smile on her lips seems far more genuine than it ever could have on her brother's expression, seeming like a common expression for her.

Morpheus sets his glare on the woman, a displeased frown curling his lips.

"Sister, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Jinx turns solid then, her building power dropping as she realizes what would happen if she continued readying for a fight.

Even without the mist, the room remains decidedly cold, and when Jinx thinks on how she can feel cold without a real body, her eyes widen.

The frosty feeling of the air, she realizes, is entirely coming from the woman, not her mist, as though her very presence drains all warmth from around them.

The woman turns and throws a grin at Morpheus, as though his displeasure greatly amuses her.

Her hand flicks up to her forehead, a finger seeming to indicate her brain to him.

"You know you missed me, Dream. As for why I'm here…"

Her gaze turns back to the couple, and Raven finds herself fighting hard not to cringe at the feeling of her attention.

"Do you know who I am?" the woman inquires, seeming even more amused by their wariness.

Raven shivers, unconsciously rubbing at her arm to stay the chill creeping through her mind.

An uncomfortable tugging sensation forms in her awareness, and she clamps down on her soul-self, drawing her energy as tightly together as possible.

"Death, were I to hazard a guess," she mutters.

The woman's eyes glow in delight, a grin on her lips.

"You got it in one. How'd you guess?"

Jinx blinks in surprise, the question one on her mind as well, with how easily her fiancé made the assumption.

"Even had he not called you sister, you're clearly an Endless. I've never felt power like either of you possess before, and it'd be hard to mistake it now that I have. And given the ankh, and the feeling like I'm having my soul sucked out just being here… it seemed a safe bet," Raven mumbles with a slight blush.

Death looks down at her necklace, her teeth now showing in her grin.

"You're a quick one."

"I try," she responds with a shrug.

"Wait… Death? Like, grim reaper scythe and robes,  _Death_?" Jinx asks with an unconscious step back.

"The scythe bit was added after the 15th century," Death quips. "They had some really  _dark_ ideas in their heads, and that's what they saw me as. Not exactly  _flattering_."

"And… why did we get the attention of Death, exactly?" Raven asks nervously. "I had some inkling that you very rarely take a mortal form, much less personally interacting with mortals…"

"Well, Dream doesn't know where your brothers will be," Death explains. "And I do."

"You do?" Jinx asks with a blink. "Wait, he  _doesn't_?"

Dream scowls at the meta, making her quickly duck behind Raven with a sheepish grin.

"Death draws me, and there's one place where there's going to be a  _lot_ of it, including a lot of demons and other creatures. That's where you'll find them opening the gate."

"They need the keys…  _key_ … before they can do anything with the gate," Raven reasons.

"Exactly. Lucky you, you guys don't even need to go down there yourselves," Death muses.

Jinx releases a sigh of relief that her lover doesn't seem willing to agree with.

"Then there is no getting to them before they get the key, is there?" the demonling groans.

"You might be able to go after them, but I don't think it'll do you much good. While you've been here, they've been working their little claws off to get to Duma. Never got why giving half to Ramiel was a  _good_ idea, personally, but you do what you're told, right, Dream?"

Dream glares at her, the expression seemingly unnoticed as she steps closer to the pair.

"But you've got  _plenty_ of time now, because of it."

Raven blinks in surprise, Death's words not making sense.

"I may not be as quick as you assumed… How do we have  _any_ time, if they're already making their way to him?" she asks.

"The key has enough power to grant the wielder control over Hell, but it's not exactly like that right now," Death explains. "They left the half of the key they retrieved topside, while sending their souls down to grab the other half."

She chuckles at the blank expression covering both of their faces, the cold moving through them seeming to intensify at the sound.

"The key isn't going to do them any good like it is. Even if they  _do_ somehow manage to get to Duma, swipe his half from him, and somehow make it back to their bodies out of Hell's locked gate  _with_ the key in hand, they're not going to be overly powerful. And that's a  _big_ 'if' considering the power they already had to use to summon Ramiel and hold him until they got his key."

"I've had it pointed out to me that I have a somewhat remarkable speed of recovery. As they share my blood, though I loathe the idea of it, I can't safely assume it's not true for them, as well," Raven sighs.

"Right. But your recovery's all physical. Even the energy you get back is physical energy. Those guys? They're burning their souls doing what they're doing, pulling on their lifeforce for it. I'm not sure if they know it, but they've jumped themselves up my list in a huge way with the last few weeks of stunts they've been pulling. Granted, you two've been happily running a race with them to see which group can get there first, but what you two're going to experience when you wake is isn't going to be  _anything_ compared to what they're doing."

Raven nods in understanding, a thoughtful frown curving her lips.

She forces her mind to focus on everything except the seeming threat over her recent actions and their consequence to both women.

"How much time do we have?"

"Again, there's a huge  _if_ here. They might burn themselves out completely down in Hell, which I promise isn't a pun, and then, you have all the time it'll take to swipe the key from where they stashed their bodies, which will be long-useless by then. But I'm not Destiny, so even I don't know for sure how it will turn out."

"If they do manage all of it and get back with the other half?" Jinx asks with clear reluctance.

"Their souls will be stretched rail-thin. Between the rumors spreading of what you would do to anyone helping them, some of them realizing they're trying to bring Hell up to throw the entire universe off, and some deciding they're less likely to get killed if they just let your group and theirs kill each other off, they don't have much support remaining. The ones left are too weak or dim-witted to properly put the halves back together, so it's up to your brothers. If I were to guess, and keep in mind this is  _only_  a rough estimate since demon souls are kind of finicky, I'd say it could take them up to a full week of Earth's time to pull themselves back together."

"And the pessimistic estimate?" Raven sighs.

"At least five human days, and that's  _only_  if they can manage to go into a trance like Raven here can, while also running from Duma, Ramiel, and everyone the two can sic on them to get the keys back. They won't take it lying down. And they probably can't go into the trance, anyway, seeing as how that's a trained skill you picked up from the Temple of Azar."

"I would be disturbed you know so much, were you not omniscient," Raven notes.

"Comes with the territory," Death says with a shrug. "Life and Death are my business. I don't know everything there is to know, but I know at least the generals about everything."

Dream's mouth opened, the chill of Death's proximity completely canceling out any lulling effect his voice had previously had on the pair.

"They also only have one opportunity. There are no second chances for them to get the energy they need to both combine the key and to open the gate with it. If they fail, the remains of their souls will not be enough to make another attempt. Thus, they will, if they are at all intelligent, which they would need to be to concoct this plan without being more unbalanced than your lineage necessitates, take as much time as they require, in order to return to their optimum condition."

"He's right," Death says with a nod. "They mess it up, and all this work will be made completely pointless, which they're fully aware of. And they'll be running the whole time once they get back, because the leaders in Hell won't take this lying down. The First and his will probably interfere, which is how they'll be able to stay ahead instead of jumping right to the front of my line, but it won't let them rest and speed up their recovery."

Raven's shoulders sag, a brow rising at Death.

"So they will be on the move. Again. Wonderful," she sighs.

Grinning, Death steps forward and wraps an arm around Raven's shoulder, her body nearly turning to ice despite its ethereal nature at the touch.

Seeing the slight blue tint to the demonling, Death's grin dims somewhat, and her eyes flash briefly with light.

The cold immediately vanishes, and the woman's smile returns to its previous size.

"Don't get so discouraged. I've got something that Lucifer Morningstar doesn't."

Any number of the snarky remarks the metahuman is preparing to make in response are cut off by Raven's warning glare.

"You know where they'll end up," the demonling muses.

"There's a location on your planet that's got a strong draw for me. The chances are high that'll be where you'll find them, when they get there."

"Any chance we can know where they are, so we can take their asses out  _before_ they get back to being in full health?" Jinx asks.

"Well, I know where their bodies are, but I don't think you'll be wanting to run the risk just now. They might be vulnerable, themselves, but they've got that vampire and his cult watching over them, and they're in a place that Raven probably  _really_ wouldn't want to just waltz into."

Raven's eyes narrow, a shiver of warning running through her.

"Are they in the Church in Gotham?" Jinx ponders.

"Nope. An old library."

Raven's eyes widen, her eyes sliding to the Endless still hanging onto her shoulder.

"Yes, Raven,  _that_ oldlibrary. Makes sense, opening a portal there. Close enough to Hell as it is, gives them less issue getting through."

Raven nods, her expression hardening.

"I'll level the building on top of them. There will be no body for any of them to return to," she hisses.

"Eager. Kind of surprised you didn't think to do that last time, actually," Death muses. "But I don't think that'll work. Odds are pretty good that nothing good comes from you getting anywhere near them while they're in there. And with what it's got, you aren't going to pull that building down without being very close."

"Whoa, hang on," Jinx hisses. "Some old books and statues ain't enough to scare us away!"

"The defense mechanisms set up by the Church of Blood, which activate the aspect of my soul that yet remains a dimensional key for my father, or as the case may be any creature with knowledge of me waiting to jump across, however,  _do_ ," Raven retorts. "Even though Trigon is dead, Death is right.  _Nothing_ good can come from me approaching there."

Jinx blanches, her eyes going wide in realization.

Their previous comment flashes to her mind, and she finds herself very glad for the warning the Endless gave them.

"Ohh…  _that_  library… Yeah, uh, good call, Death," Jinx mutters with a shaky thumb raised. "So… about where they  _will_ be?"

"Again, they  _might_ end up as empty husks. If they  _do_ make it out alive with the key, though, then sometime within the next week, they'll be trying to open the Hellmouth in Gotham. There's a cave system beneath the city, which your former leader knows well. Not every part of it has been explored by his mentor, and there are sections that have been there for a long time on the planet. That's where you'll find them."

Raven nods, her mind going to work on how much the hero would complain if his cavernous lair was crumpled in the process of her caving the entire tunnel system in on her brothers.

"Not exact coordinates, but far more information than we've gotten thus far. Thank you a great deal, Death," she states with a small bow of her head.

"No problem. You guys taking care of this for me means that I'll have a  _lot_ less work and cleaning up to do," Death quips with an utterly unembarrassed shrug.

Nodding, Raven moves from beneath the Endless's arm and joins the meta's side, eyes moving to the castle's door.

"Then we had best not outstay our welcome-"

"That would mean there was a welcoming invitation to begin with," Dream muses.

"-so we'll take our leave now and get started looking for where they're most likely to work."

The couple doesn't take two full steps before Death suddenly vanishes and pops back into existence in front of them in a cloud of silver smoke.

"You two are pretty serious. That's good. But I think that you should probably spend at least a day getting your affairs in order," Death states.

They both stare at her blankly, causing the Endless's smile to wane slightly.

"If your siblings manage to take care of tricking and beating both handpicked guardians of Hell, they're not to be taken lightly. You killed one of them, but that still leaves six of them. It will not be anything resembling  _easy_ if they can pull that all off. I'm quite serious. As the one who ferries all souls to their new beginnings, or their true ends, I have seen a great deal of regrets and laments, and it is entirely possible that even if you both emerge victorious, it will be at the cost of your lives. You  _don't_ want to be among the regretful ones."

Death's words strike a chord in Raven, her eyes widening at the deep weariness coming across in the Endless's melodic voice.

Jinx, too, hears it, and her grip on Raven's hand tightens subconsciously, until both have whitened knuckles.

"Thank you, Death… We will keep that in mind…" the demonling mutters uncomfortably.

"I'm sure you will," Death returns with another shrug.

Her smile returns to its former wattage, the woman suddenly behind them with an arm over each of their shoulders.

"And don't think I'm seeing the future here, or anything. It's possible that it could end that way. Who knows? You've rewritten Destiny's books before, and you two have a lot to live for. I've also learned to never underestimate the sheer will that can draw from you mortals. It's what keeps eternity interesting. So try your best, okay?"

Jinx nods, a small smile on her lips.

"We'll try our damnedest."

"That's a poor pun," Raven groans, making the meta's grin grow even larger.

"Yep. Now, are we gonna' have to walk back through the stupid gate to get back to our bodies, or is there some magic words you've got in your head to wake us up?" the meta asks with a sideways glance at her fiancé.

Dream materializes in front of them before Raven can speak, black sand taking form in his open palm.

A puff of air hits the pile, and for a brief moment, the women watch blackness creep through their bodies as though their veins are pumping it through them.

As one, they blink, and their eyes open to a ceiling of grey brick over their heads and a golden bubble of magic protecting them…  
 *************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

I had a lot of fun writing how Death contrasts to her brother here. She's pretty bubbly and energetic, considering her job, and it was pretty enjoyable to mix it with the others' personalities. I hope you all enjoyed, as well! I look forward to reading your thoughts on it, good or bad, as always. See you all next time!


	50. Will and Testament (Part I)

# XLIX. Will & Testament (Part I)

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

The first sensation to hit the women after their eyes adjust is pain.

Horrific, body-racking, mind-scorchingly white hot pain.

Jinx curls into a ball, clutching at her burning throat desperately.

She tastes hints of blood in her mouth, which she finds to be inexplicably dry as a desert.

Her breaths come laboured, the meta suddenly feeling as though her entire body is being compressed.

The edges of her vision go dark as the air refuses to come to her, but just as she nears passing out, the compression loosens enough for her to drag desperate gulps of air into her lungs.

Raven's muscles clench painfully tight at the same time, an inexplicable heat rushing through her entire body.

She gets the impression of incredibly heated, volcanic air pressing against her face, making the skin incredibly sensitive.

The demonling rolls onto her stomach and releases coughs that throw ripples of fresh pain through her sore body.

No matter how many coughs she releases, the taste of ash and blood refuses to leave her senses.

Hearing the noise, Jinx turns her eyes toward Raven, the orbs widening almost comically at the sparks of pink light being released from her lover's trembling form.

Before she can wonder on it too much, a sudden impact in her stomach makes itself known, the nausea making her pained body ache even more.

Just as the nausea begins subsiding, a blinding agony fires off in her forehead, her hands pressing down in a vain attempt at making the pain stop as quickly as possible.

Raven's head likewise flares with pain, the gem in her forehead glowing a dark obsidian.

Through her narrowed gaze, she notices large shadows bubbling into existence around Jinx, seeming to be trying to crush the meta.

Worried voices briefly register to her mind, but she quickly forgets hearing them as she forces herself to move closer to Jinx.

They'd gone into their trance tightly holding hands, but sometime along the way, they'd separated.

What would be a step or two is a Herculean effort of a crawl to close the distance as shockwaves of pain run through the empath's body.

Jinx whimpers and curls again into a ball, her forehead pressing to the cool stone of the floor with the hope of it relieving the sensations running through her.

Out of the corner of her slitted eye, she spots movement, and her arm blindly flails outward.

Her hand is suddenly wrapped in something warm and soaking wet.

An explosion of sparking light floods the magical bubble around them, black and pink mixing harshly.

Their bodies jerk as the energies flow around them, slipping through their bodies in a dance neither is aware enough to follow.

A humming sound not unlike a chorus of buzzsaws cutting into sheets of metal rips its way into their ears, both women cringing at the assault on their even-more-sensitive-than-usual hearing.

Just as they begin to black out from the vibrating feeling rippling along their brains, it stops.

So, too, does the pain, and twin sighs of heavy relief leave them as their bodies go utterly limp.

Raven turns her head on the floor to meet Jinx's eyes, finding the meta's face shining with sweat.

Her usually pale skin is even less colored than usual, and there is a slightly glassy quality to her bright, feline eyes.

The absence of the pain leaves them gasping for air, Raven slowly sliding her way across the stone until her body is pressed to the meta's.

"O… okay… f… fuck… the Dreaming," Jinx gasps.

Raven merely tightens her hand around Jinx's, finding the flesh disturbingly cold in her grip.

"Guessing… this was mostly… us," the empath offers with a poor attempt at a shrug.

"You… looked like… I was… attackin' you."

"Same… for you," Raven wheezes.

"This… why mixin' auras… is a bad… idea?" Jinx groans in response, her vision slowly clearing.

"One… of the… reasons…"

Raven's eyes slip closed, and her magic slowly rises to the surface.

Both of their bodies are coated in a slight, bluish glow, the empath's healing magic knitting their bruised bodies back to wholeness.

The pain remains even after the damage is entirely disappeared, though, both of them wincing when the healing magic dissipates.

"You will not easily mend  _those_ injuries, I'm afraid," a tinny voice states.

The couple slowly turn their gazes to the side, finding Doctor Fate standing over them.

As soon as they realize he's there, the bubble disappears from around them, cool air soothingly brushing across their sweat-soaked skin.

The acrid tastes remain lying on their tongues, though not enough to draw more pained coughs from them.

Raven slowly rises to a seated position, grimacing at the strange heat still flowing through her veins.

"I never want to dream again," Jinx mutters when she joins Raven in being upright.

"You pushed yourselves while in Dream's realm," Doctor Fate muses as he offers them a supporting hand. "Your bodies took the damage, even as your minds remained undamaged."

Something seems to glow in his gaze when they're both standing tall, seeming to scrutinize them heavily.

" _Mostly_ undamaged, at any rate. It seems you may have altered your auras, somewhat."

Raven blanches, her eyes going unfocused as she stares at her extended hand.

Her skin turns even paler when she sees small, pulsing sparks of pink occasionally fading in and out of existence in the wall of black surrounding the limb.

Jinx, likewise, notices a flicker of shadow moving around the edges of her vision.

With her attention on her own hand, Raven misses the black lens that flickers overtop her fiancé's eye for a brief moment.

By the time she does shift her focus, the darkness is gone, though black speckling seems to dance within her left iris.

"I feel like I swallowed dust," Jinx groans.

"And I feel as though I were standing too close to a volcano," Raven agrees. "Were I to guess, I think what our minds experienced is now occurring to us."

She raises a brow in question at Doctor Fate.

The mystic nods in response, his expression remaining even more unreadable than his mask usually guarantees.

"It will go away soon enough," the empath guesses. "As it stands, we know we have some time, now. If we can set the others on my siblings, as well, they stand even less chance of succeeding."

Jinx nods, the weariness vanishing from her shoulders as she steps up to her lover's side.

"If we hurry, we might even be able to send bird brain in and have him deal with them in the library."

Raven raises a brow at the meta, drawing a blush from her.

"What? They're gonna' be weak as hell. You don't know the Titans can't take 'em right now! And even if they can't, they might not have to. If they get there and the Sons of Trigon are still down in the pit, they can move their unconscious bodies. That'll  _really_ throw them off, maybe even keep 'em out of commission entirely."

Raven nods, the logic sound to the empath.

"Let's head over to Gizmo. I don't want to have to repeat all this, and maybe we can get the Titans some extra help. My siblings may be out for the count, if they still are, but they have guards of indeterminate numbers."

As they begin to fall into a black portal, Doctor Fate raises his hand to pause them.

"When you've given the others their orders and warnings, you should return here. Your souls are not the most fortified at the moment, and staying in this tower's barriers while you prepare yourselves would be nothing but helpful to the situation."

"No place better," Jinx muses as they vanish into the floor…

…..

Raven stares at the monitor, several people staring back at her incredulously.

Drenched in sweat, with their hair tousled and eyes somewhat glassy, the others have obviously made assumptions from their appearances.

While the assumptions about what they'd been doing prior to their call would normally be amusing, and possibly true, it simply irritates the empath now.

"We got the information we needed," Raven says in greeting. "It isn't perfect, and there's still other possibilities, but this seems the best we're going to get."

With a sigh, Raven readies herself for the coming questions.

"The Sons of Trigon have gotten their hands on half of what they need to open the Hellmouth. We were misinformed, and were unable to stop them. As it stands, they're possibly going to kill themselves getting the other half, making all of this a non-issue."

She nods to Gizmo, and the map of the tunnel system beneath Gotham City appears on the screen, mirrored to the others connected to the call.

"If they manage to come back at all, the chances are incredibly high that they'll be opening the gateway beneath Gotham."

Her eyes shift to Nightwing, whose expression is grim.

"Let Batman know. Perhaps he can figure out where it will be, if it's an explored part, and if not, at the very least, he'll have advanced warning if his cave is suddenly crumpled in a way not unlike a tin can."

"He's  _not_  going to be happy about this," the former Boy Wonder groans.

"Undoubtedly, but better several billion dollars lost than the whole of the universe be at risk. Besides, he stands a good chance of figuring it all out."

"And the source for this information?" the Martian Manhunter asks.

Behind the green man, Raven sees several other founding members of the Justice League, all of whom are glaring at her.

"I… received the information from an Archangel and it was expanded upon by a pair of divinities with arguably more clout," she states.

The faces stare blankly at her, their doubt clear despite none of them making a sound.

"Looks like there's no holding the cards close here, Rae," Gizmo snickers.

Glaring at the inventor, Raven releases an audible sigh that releases the mounting tension in her shoulders.

"Alright, then. After I killed one of my brothers, John Constantine sent us on the trail of a piano bar, which is run by a man who calls himself Sam. Take that and my previous statement and make what conclusions you will."

While some continue staring blankly at her, others begin to catch on.

"Whoa, hold the damn phone," Zatanna protests while popping into view from Nightwing's side. "Like, the  _Samael_ kind of Sam?  _That_ was your source!?"

Raven's brow rises, her irritation caught by nobody but Jinx and Nightwing.

"Can you think of anyone who would be a better authority on Hell and what would be needed to open the Hellmouth than someone who walked right out of it?" Raven challenges.

Jinx steps up, more than matching Zatanna's glare.

"Look, we've hashed this out already. I ain't happy about it, either, bunny, but the info's on the level. He just boiled down to another referral, anyway, so you don't have to worry about it."

"She got a lead from-"

"I believe I once told you, when we were temporarily teammates, that you cannot argue with sources as long as the results are sound," Raven interrupts.

"Who,  _exactly_ , was this source of yours?" Nightwing demands.

"An Archangel named Samael. The name comes from the Talmud. Goes way back. Also known as the destroyer," Zatanna nearly hisses.

"I am not familiar with your planet's various mythologies," Manhunter states even as a few more behind him catch on. "There is an issue of some kind with using this… Samael… as a source?"

"You could say that. Say what you will about the Sons of Trigon, but as far as we know, at least  _they_ aren't working with Lucifer," the witch snarls.

The other members of their conference call stare in shock at the empath, who draws herself to full height before them.

"Zatanna, you may wish to put barriers up. Saying a proper name like that, while being a mystic, is not going to garner the attention of  _anything_ positive," Raven warns.

"I know how to handle myself. Though apparently not  _nearly_ as well as-"

"Also, they're working with a person vying to be the  _current_ leader of Hell," Raven quips in interruption. "And I am not  _working_ with the man. We were sent to him on Constantine's recommendation, and he, in turn, sent us somewhere else."

"I'm not really big on the idea of using information we got from a demon," a large man muses from behind Manhunter.

The Martian moves out of the way to give Superman the attention of their end of the call, the Kryptonian glaring at Raven.

"Fortunately, this factors into the grand scheme of the next several days approximately none. Also, he's an Archangel, not a demon, and complaints over ideological differences aside, he very much has the power and intelligence that comes with such a species. Further, he has a vested interest in keeping the universe balanced, and therefore keeping Hell locked tight, as any other being in this universe. Only the short-sighted fools that unfortunately share my blood would benefit, for the whole five seconds it would take for them to be annihilated, from opening the Hellmouth."

A long, painful silence stretches for what seems like an eternity.

"You, uh, said there was a pair of divinities other than…  _Sam_?" Nightwing asks with a not-so-subtle cough.

"Before even the Lords of Order and Chaos were fully formed, there were beings known as the Endless, who will likely be the last to fade when this universe is eventually snuffed like a candle. Of them, we met two within the realm where dreams are formed, and they're where we got the actual information. The embodiment of death told us where she felt a draw in the universe, which will be somewhere within the tunnel system beneath Gotham."

" _Somewhere_? There's a whole helluva damn  _lot_ of  _somewhere_ 's down there," Zatanna grouses.

"She did not offer exact coordinates."

Her eyes again lock with Nightwing's, her body tensing in preparation for the coming argument

"She also told us that they've left their bodies in the library. I cannot go there, obviously, but the Titans certainly could. If something were to happen to their bodies while they're in Hell, the slim chance they have of returning would become nil."

Cyborg appears from behind Nightwing, his eyes wide.

"The last time we went there, an army of fiery demons were swarmin' us to try to throw us off the stairs and end us. I'ma give a repeat performance of  _that_ a pass, if ya' don't mind."

"I did not have thoughts of going  _into_ the building," Raven muses. "However, even getting close enough to deal with it in a different matter would be too close for safety."

"You want us to just take down a building made of solid stone that's stood for at  _least_ a couple centuries?" Zatanna gasps.

"What's this library?" Superman asks with a frown.

"It's an old, stone library, built by the Church of Blood in Jump City centuries ago. There're all kinds of nasty magic around the place, which Raven activates by nearing. At the bottom, there's a portal," Nightwing explains.

"And I would crumple the building into itself, their bodies and all, if I could," the empath adds with a shrug. "It's an old building. You hit it in the right places, apply enough weight and force, and it will collapse on them."

She feels a multitude of stares leveled on her, though the first to speak isn't among the horrified.

"That's pretty cold, Rae," Cyborg muses.

"Yes, it is. It is also guaranteed to be effective. If they return to broken shells, their souls will have no tethers, and by the time they can come up with a resemblance of a plan to regroup, if they could at all, the angels will have the keys back in their possession and the Sons of Trigon will not be able to make another attempt."

"You're asking us to kill five people without any attempt at justice here. You can see why we're not thrilled, right?" Nightwing sighs.

Raven's brow rises in surprise.

The Titan frowns when Gizmo releases a choking sound suspiciously sounding as though he's attempting to not laugh at him.

"Something funny,  _Gizmo_?"

The genius straightens in his seat, his amusement vanishing in the blink of an eye.

All eyes go to the smaller man, a harsh expression on his face.

"Just finding it funny that you still haven't grown up. I mean, I know you leavin' the Bat was all about not wantin' to be like him, but that shouldn't mean you've gotta' drown in naivety. I'm not exactly gung-ho and jumpin' for joy over the idea, either, because, really, who would be? But the whole _justice_  thing? Yeah, that ain't happenin' here. They're demons tryin' to pry open the gate of Hell. They need to die, and there's no prettyin' that up here."

"There's  _always_  another way."

"Really?  _Always_? Tell me what solution you have, then," Raven states.

Despite how quiet her voice is, the tone silences the others, the empath's expression becoming utterly unreadable as she locks eyes with her former leader.

He stares back, lips in a frown and stuck closed in his utter lack of ideas to voice.

"Exactly," the demonling quips before sending her gaze to all those connected to their call.

The Justice League stares in suspicion at her, while the Titans are a mix between disgusted and unreadable.

Steel stares from his office, entirely silent but seeming to be the most on board with their plan of everyone.

"At the end of this, my brothers are dead, or the universe is screwed. Five short-sighted psychopaths and a handful of cultists, or the whole of life. There is nothing complicated about this."

"They're still living beings. I get that they're horrible evil, but we don't get to play gods," the Titan growls.

"I assure you that there's nothing  _godly_  about what I'm going to be doing if you don't take care of it. And that  _is_ what it comes down to. If we don't stop them now, by which I mean anyone who  _won't_  set off a potential apocalypse by approaching them while they're defenseless, then I'll be the one to do it, after they've returned to full-strength. If you're looking for justice, kindness, or some kind of merciful conclusion to this, you'll want to take care of this before I get my hands on them. Because there is  _no_  mercy to be found in me for anyone who would attempt loosing Hell on the rest of the universe."

Taking a breath, Raven forces her muscles to relax once again.

"Two options, people. Either make their bodies in some way inaccessible to my brothers, so that even if they  _do_  return from their trip, they will have neither the bodies nor the half of the key they already procured. Kill them, drag them to the safe room in the Tower so their soul-selves can't reach their bodies, I don't care, really. But you'll be fighting the Church of Blood and the library's defenses to get to them, and that will take time, meaning that dropping the building on them is the most likely solution to work."

"And the other option?" Superman demands, seeming to be readying for a fight.

Raven and Jinx meet eyes, a silent conversation passing between them for several moments that no one watching can guess at.

By the end of it, a grim expression curves Jinx's lips, and she bobs her head slightly in an agreement of some kind.

Raven's expression remains unreadable, though her body is noticeably tensed once more.

"Then they escape the library with both halves of Hell's key. They will be on the run from the angels and demons alike that will hound them. You'll be subjecting them to days of torture, assuming they aren't caught, which will make for  _much_ longer. And, in the event that they get past all of that for the time needed to recover their shredded souls, then we will hunt them down beneath Gotham like dogs."

"And what happens if that  _is_ how it goes?" Cyborg asks with a clear reluctance.

"Then you all will need to take care of evacuating Gotham, because I'll slaughter them, no matter how much of the city falls in the process. We can not afford to hold back with them if we wish to live, and they certainly will not be pulling punches either. Nothing good will happen to any being caught in my path."

"We'll just stop the both of you," Superman shrugs.

Raven's brow rises, the only signal of her stifled laughter.

"I like your confidence, really I do. Truly, it's such a brilliant strategy."

"I think we could handle you just fine," he retorts with a glare.

"Do you? When I came to your group, telling you that Trigon would be coming to raze the Earth, you turned me away. When my father  _did_ come, I do not recall the Justice League being anywhere to aid in the fight. That would suggest that you all were powerless against him despite forewarning. And I defeated him. You didn't beat him, and he didn't beat me, and my siblings are at least powerful enough to get half the key to Hell from the handpicked guardians of the dimension. So, a simple question. What chance do any of you have between them and me?"

Superman blanches somewhat, several others following suit.

"You know how to put things inta' perspective, Rae," Gizmo muses with a soft whistle.

"Really? Think the same thing's true if someone like Etrigan or Doctor Fate were to step in? What if your girlfriend were to get in the way?" the Kryptonian finally returns after a stretching silence.

"Not an issue," Jinx quips. "They aren't stupid enough to take chances with this kind of thing. No mystic that's sane would do anything but help us. And I'll be fighting right with her, not tryin' to interfere. It ain't pretty, but Raven's right. They need to get ended, or all of us will, instead."

Troia appears in the Titans' feed, a loud  _cracking_ sound releasing from her knuckles as she presses her fists together.

"I'm with them. Don't know about my sis, but I know from experience that things tend to get ugly for everyone when myths meet modern times. The Greeks have their problems, their messed up things that torment mortals, but nothin' we got holds a candle to that pit. Stopping that from getting out of its cage is more important than whether it's squeaky clean on  _how_ we stop it."

"It seems to be a logical conclusion," Manhunter monotones from Superman's side.

"Is there a way to stop them  _without_ killing them?" Zatanna demands.

"You planned to mentally stunt me into being a brain-dead husk. A plan along those lines would also work, I suppose, but that would be far crueler than killing them… Actually, if that's on the table-"

"Okay, I get it," the sorceress interrupts. "Geez. I was freaking possessed. Let it go."

"Manipulated," Raven corrects. "Your will was still your own, as I explained. However, those truly are the options available. If we move their shells, their souls will not find them, and the bodies will die, likely in a slow and rather terrible manner. If we in some way manage to interfere with them using the key, their souls will be close enough to being destroyed that they will wish to be dead, since I can't imagine a recovery from that kind of damage would be feasible, much less easy. And if we kill them, they will, obviously, be dead. No matter how this plays out, that is the end."

"We  _don't_ kill," Nightwing growls.

Jinx shivers as the room turns cold, her lover's voice causing the sensation almost as much as her magic slipping free.

"You didn't have an inkling of a problem when you stood by and let me kill my father," Raven challenges.

"He was a soulless monster. You have a soul, therefore your brothers have a soul, so yeah, I have a problem with this," the Titan snarls.

"We don't have the time for this. If they wake up, things get much harder to deal with, and they get dead at the end no matter how we play this. If none of you will do it, then I'll take care of it myself," Jinx hisses, eyes narrowing in anger.

Raven gives her fiancé a warning glare, but the meta entirely ignores it.

"You've got a choice to make, and I'm not as into diplomacy as Rae is, and after the day we've had, I don't really feel like playing nice. If someone doesn't agree to go in there and get them, now, then I'll have Raven hop me as close as she's safely able to get to it. And I'll topple the whole fucking building on top of them, cultists and all."

Raven's face remains stoic, but the meta can tell she sees her bluff for what it is.

The meta, being completely honest with herself, can admit that a structure of solid stone and covering a huge cavern below the earth might be out of her league.

The others watching her, though, seem more than willing to buy her threat.

"That's a lot of death you'll cause," Superman growls.

"Yep! And I won't lose a bit of sleep over it, either," Jinx lies.

"Thought you were a thief, not a murderer," Zatanna challenges.

"I'm lots of things, including a realist. Anyone in there's nuts and dangerous enough to help the Sons of Trigon, and Raven's brothers are lookin' to unleash Hell. So you guys can go in, take them out in whatever way makes your conscience feel warm and fuzzy, and grab the Sons of Trigon so they can't find their bodies on the way back. Or you can be prissy about this, and I'll throw every bit of mojo I've got into crumpling the foundation of the library, and bring several metric tons of stone, wood, and magic down on the heads of everyone and everything inside."

"Can you do that?" Cyborg asks in surprise.

"Earth magic and bad luck, and a really old building. I'll manage. If I have to."

"Then why waste your time with this? Why not just go ahead and apologize later? You had to know we wouldn't be jumping for joy at the idea," Nightwing hisses.

"Because I don't want to make Raven get near there. Whatever her brothers are doing, it'll be made easier if they suck her in with the magic that library's got and use her. And I figured you'd want the option that  _doesn't_ involve a pile of corpses. But if you want to roll the dice with the apocalypse, then you're not givin' us any other options."

As she speaks, Jinx realizes her threat is quickly becoming less of a bluff.

A cold certainty begins taking form as she realizes that, if needed, she really will follow through and kill however many people she needs to if it stops Raven's brothers from succeeding.

Raven seems to notice as well, and Jinx fights a startled jump when she feels the empath's cool hand on her back.

The touch calms her suddenly racing heart, and Raven gives the meta a small nod.

"I'm up for a fight," Troia muses with a small smirk.

Several people behind Superman seem to agree, though are no more happy about it than the Kryptonian.

"Sounds like you're going to do whatever you think is necessary," he sighs.

"It's not thinking. This  _is_ the fact of the situation," Raven nearly growls.

"I'm done with this. I'm heading out," Troia adds, already on her way to the door. "See whoever's helping when I get there."

Raven notices Zatanna staring after the Amazon, indecision on her face.

The witch slowly nods, seemingly to herself, and turns away from the camera.

"Hang on. We'll get there faster if I'm teleporting us," she sighs before quickly catching up.

Nightwing stares after her in surprise, and Zatanna tenses when she notices.

"Face it, Dick, they're right. We can't let this happen, even if we have to kill to stop it."

Before the Titan can respond, a cloud of black smoke wraps around the women.

Cyborg says nothing as he leaps into the smoke, a flash of gold and red joining him as they leave.

From behind Superman, the Manhunter begins to fade from view, several others grabbing onto his shoulder before he completely vanishes.

"You just turned heroes into killers," Superman growls. "When this is over, we're going to have a  _long_ talk where you'll need to convince me not to force you out of this dimension."

Raven stares blankly at him, though the whitening of her knuckles as her hand closes to a fist doesn't go unnoticed.

"If we survive this, I'll add you to the list of people who'll be after my head. It's a long list, so you might have to wait a while."

His retort is cut off by Gizmo shutting his feed off, Nightwing's ending simultaneously.

Steel fills the screen, his expression grim.

"I'll get approval from Bones. You need anything, you let me know. A team, weapons, a damn missile, I don't think he's gonna' be overly picky right now. Get it done," he grunts before vanishing as well.

"You know the Kryptonian was serious, right? Pretty sure the Bat calls him a boy scout for a reason, and I'm bettin' he'll be tryin' to banish your ass when this ends," Gizmo states into the silence.

"I'm sure. He'll be fighting it out with the Fae, a plethora of people at the Oblivion, and any number of demons. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll get so caught up in vying for my head that they forget what they're arguing over."

Jinx stares at the empath in worry, unable to hide her frown.

"How often are you lucky?" the meta sighs.

She blushes when violet eyes lock on her, a slightly amused smirk curving her lips.

"It  _does_  occasionally happen."

"Raven, I know shit's going down, but we really need to make some plans. When we get this all done, and we  _will_ come out of it okay, that could get _really_ ugly. What if they tried to send you back to Azarath?"

"Well, it wouldn't work, right?" Gizmo asks while spinning to face them.

"It most certainly would not," Raven agrees.

"Because there  _ain't_ an Azarath anymore. Just a burned island in the middle of a pocket dimension. If you pop through, who knows what the fuck could happen to you? Is the dimension even still there without the city? You could end up pressed into the inter-dimensional walls and reduced to dust in space."

"We will discuss this at length later, Jinx," Raven says in a softened voice.

"We need to-"

"We can't worry about it at the moment," her fiancé interrupts. "We need to plan for what we do in the event that they screw this up."

"You're kiddin', right? It's a ton of superheroes versus five unconscious guys and some nutjobs. I think they can handle it. They won't even have to deal with the demons and shit, without the Gem nearby, right?" Gizmo asks incredulously.

"And only one or two magicians among those who went. Sebastian, if he's there, will also be a handful. We can't simply expect it to go off perfectly, when  _nothing_ in this case has thus far."

"Well, when you put it like that…"

"Gizmo, keep us posted. If they come out of the library with my brothers, fantastic. If not, we need to know immediately."

Gizmo simply waves at Raven as the couple disappears in a vortex of darkness…  
 *******************************

 _Author's Notes_ :

Another long chapter. Things are coming to a close, people, and I hope you're all enjoying as much as I am.

As always, I look forward to thoughts both positive and negative, and I'll see you all next time!


	51. Will and Testament (Part II)

# L. Will & Testament (Part II)

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven is tentative about the course of her teleportation.

Given the last experience with Fate's tower, both women are understandably cautious.

When they rise from the stone floor without any issues, though, both release a held breath in relief.

"Looks like he got that taken care of," Jinx sighs.

"As soon as you left," a voice states, causing the meta to almost jump.

"Thank you. Can I assume that you were privy to the conference?" Raven asks.

"Indeed. Do you believe that they'll be able to pull it off?" Doctor Fate returns.

"We're hopeful," Jinx responds with a shrug.

"In the meantime, I need to procure a room in your tower, hopefully only for a short time," Raven adds. "I have need to do some more astral traveling."

"That's unwise, with your soul as unsteady as it already is," Fate retorts.

"I'm going with you," Jinx adds in chorus.

"I need to delve into my own mind, not another plane. It is very probably not a good idea, given my exhaustion, but we do not have time for me to cater to exhaustion right now."

She turns her gaze to the meta, an apologetic grimace coloring her expression.

"And I need you to keep an eye on the situation. If something goes wrong while I'm out, I need you to be able to keep in touch with Gizmo for both of us and stay updated."

Jinx feels something off about Raven's statement, and her inability to figure it out further irritates her.

"Gizmo can handle it. If that monster's really alive in there, I'm  _not_ going to let you go in there alone, Raven," she hisses back.

" _If_ he's really not a figment of the Dreaming, then he's currently siphoned to a shell and bound in chains," the empath reasons.

The doubt glows in her eyes, though, and Jinx presses on it.

"He's an immortal with anger problems and a lot of time to make plans. Let's say he really was talking to you there. He'll know you'll be coming. You really think that he won't have some plan already waiting?"

Suddenly remembering their audience, Raven blanches and takes a light hold on Jinx's arm.

With a nod of thanks, they quickly leave the staring Doctor Fate, the meta's hands balling into fists as they make their way to an empty room.

Jinx spins on her the second they clear the door, her eyes giving off sparks of angry, pink light.

Raven winces at the firm grasp on her shoulder, the still-sore muscles creaking slightly.

"Raven, so fucking help me, if I have to, I'll find a way into that pocket of yours and pull the damn mirror out. I'm  _not_ letting you go against him alone."

"Jinx-"

"I'm way past too tired for it," the meta interrupts with a hint of a growl. "He might not be real. Awesome. But if he  _is_ real, then you're going to be walking into a serious goddamn trap. I remember what you said could happen to you if something went on in there, the first time you took me there. I'm  _not_ letting it happen."

Raven's own posture becomes stiff, though she doesn't show any other outward signs of her roiling emotions.

"I can't let you join me, Jinx. If something were to happen to me while in Nevermore, and you were with me… your fate would be far worse than mine. I won't have you take that risk, either."

"Then-"

Raven moves, earning a light squeak from Jinx as she pulls her into her embrace.

"If it were not for our timetable, I would be getting a good amount of rest, with you, and we would both go in together. But if my brothers escape, then we need to prepare for the apocalypse, and I cannot run the risk of having residual traces of Trigon in my mind if I am to face my brothers. I need to clear this matter immediately. And I  _need_ someone to keep an eye, both on the situation, and on  _me_."

"Keeping an eye on  _you_ won't do a damn bit of good, when everything'll be in your head!"

Raven tenses, and Jinx frowns when she feels it.

Pulling back, she notices the empath's eyes are downcast, another grimace curving her expression.

"Unless you think there's something to keep an eye out  _for_."

It isn't stated as a question, but the meta notices that the demonling looks decidedly conflicted anyway.

"Raven, why do I have to keep an eye on you?" she demands.

"So that you can set Fate on me, if any event requiring such a thing arises."

"Raven-"

"It is possible that, were something to occur, I might slip into a coma. However, far more useful to my father is an event wherein my body remains fully functional, with him running things instead. If I come out of this seeming abnormal, I need to die, immediately. I will  _not_ have my powers used for any such purpose. And you know how to do it, as would Fate. Together, you two stand a good chance against me, even if Trigon is using every bit of potential magic I have stored in me."

The room becomes utterly silent, even Jinx's stalled breathing not breaking the silence.

When spots begin to dance before her, she remembers the need for oxygen in her burning lungs.

Even the fresh air does nothing to slow her heart's rapid pace.

She bounces between shocked, horrified, and angry for a small eternity, but the still-unfamiliar anger wins out at her fiancé's idea.

"If you think for even one damn second that I'm gonna' let you go commit suicide using me as a proxy, then you're-"

"Much like my brothers, I, too, have a very limited number of outcomes. If I go there and find nothing, then it's a non-issue. But if he's there, and I let it go, I run the risk of becoming steadily more like Trigon every time I call on my demonic I'll be leaning heavily on to beat them. Or I deal with him, now, and run the same risk, but have the chance to cut the head off a wretched snake before I get bitten. I do not plan to lose, as I am stronger than our last fight while he would be significantly weaker. But I can't allow for error. If he somehow pulls it off, I won't throw my powers in to all the other problems already facing everyone."

"And if you die while your brothers get away, then what? You were just goin' on about how screwed people would be gettin' between you an' them, but how bad'll it be if it's just them?"

"I am not  _planning_ on losing," Raven defends.

"No, you're just planning for me to kill your ass when you do!"

"I  _always_ plan for the unlikely possibilities. I won't lose to a husk of Trigon, any more than I lost to him when he was at his peak."

"Great! Then-"

"But if he's there, I will be facing him in Nevermore, and he's had a great deal more time to practice planning than I have. I can  _plan_ to not lose all I like, but I can't ignore that the plan may fall through."

Jinx's response dies on her lips, her eyes still crackling with angry light.

The women stare silently at each other, the tension ratcheting in the air with every second that passes.

"You said no more soloing things," Jinx finally growls.

Raven's hand suddenly lands on the meta's shoulder, her patience gone.

"I do not  _want_ to do this alone, Jinx! But I have no choice. Who knows what kind of damage I would cause if Trigon took over my body and powers? That  _can. not. happen_! And I need someone who knows how to kill me out here, in the event of it happening. Fate and the others could possibly do it, but the damage in the meantime would be incomprehensible, especially if he decides to make use of my brothers."

Pain flashes across her face, and she steps closer to her lover.

"You're the  _only_ person I have ever trusted enough to divulge how to destroy me. If I lose, I need you to take care of it. I wouldn't make you do it yourself, but I need you ready, to tell Fate how to do it.  _Please_ , Nicole!"

She jerks her hand away as if burned, her body spinning away from Jinx in a blur until she was staring at her back.

"Besides," she starts with a noticeable quiver to her voice, "he might not really be there."

She throws a smile over her shoulder at Jinx before her eyes flash black.

Jinx watches her slump, her teeth grinding together as she slows her fall.

"Damnit," she hisses at the seemingly sleeping empath. "If you lose, I'll do it. And then, I'll hunt you down and kick your ghost's ass."

Raven's form seems to smirk in amusement, but the meta finds the expression too sinister for it to be reassuring…

…

Rocks crack and hiss beneath Raven's feet.

The scent of acrid smoke presses against her nostrils, drawing a grimace from the empath.

As soon as her awareness had entered her astral plane, she'd known.

There had been a distinctive, empty feeling that the realm had gained with the disappearance of her Emoticlones.

When she slipped down to her subconscious, the air seemed tense this time.

Every step across the landscape gives her the impression that she is being watched, and the air itself seems angry.

Rage's previous domain had been the obvious location for her father's bindings, and every step closer to the area affirms her suspicion.

When the heat of the volcanic hellscape reaches her, she briefly wonders at the sensation of blood in her mouth.

Her eyes narrow when the sensation becomes strong enough that she reaches up to wipe the liquid away, only to find nothing there.

As soon as she reaches up to clear the nonexistent blood away, though, a rumble rolls across the ground in three short waves, and she realizes that they're the effects of a giant's laughter.

Irritation zings through her, and a pulse of black energy rises through her skin.

When it dies down, the sensation is gone, and she finds herself even more wary.

Her hands ball to fists as she rises from the ground, fabric violently rippling around her.

She takes off through the air, her awareness constantly scanning for Trigon's presence.

An obelisk of black stone suddenly springs into existence near her side, drawing her to a jerking halt.

Raven stares at her father, finding him to be roughly three times as tall as the Dreaming's vision had suggested.

He is, nonetheless, still hollow-seeming, with skin hanging loose where muscles used to stand large.

Despite the weakness of his physical form, his eyes glow bright with magical energy, and she notices that the stone behind him is chipped and cracked.

His shackles are likewise damaged, giving off black wisps of smoke with every movement he makes.

The grin curving his lips does little for her growing feeling of being trapped.

" _ **Daughter, it's so nice of you to come so soon!**_ "

Raven's soul-self leaks out from her right arm, a claw of obsidian fire taking form in the burning air.

Trigon simply continues grinning, his fangs glowing harshly in the firelight.

"If I knock the bottom from that tower, will you die in the lava? Or will I simply have to drag you back up and find another way to cleanse you from my soul?"

" _ **Ah, daughter, can you truly afford to do that?**_ " he laughs.

Her stomach clenches at the deep sense of foreboding his words cause, but she keeps her expression neutral.

"You're corrupting my mind. It cannot continue."

" _ **Ah, but**_ **how** _ **am I corrupting your mind,**_ **daughter** _ **? Every time you've become more like me, it's been through**_ **you** _ **calling on**_ **my** _ **powers. Because**_ **you** _ **were too weak to handle things yourself,**_ **you** _ **needed to pull on**_ **my** _ **blood,**_ **my** _ **powers, to ensure**_ **your** _ **continued survival. Can you really believe that you will be able to defeat the others without that power?**_ "

Raven's weaponized soul-self wavers, a startled gasp escaping her before she can choke it off.

" _ **No planned response? Pathetic! How you ever defeated me, I will never fathom.**_ "

He winces when darkness suddenly slams into him, pressing him with bone-atomizing force into the obelisk.

Raven glares at him, not feeling the way that red creeps slightly across her eyes.

"I defeated you because I am stronger than you. I may have been your Gem, but in giving me that power, you engineered your own death."

" _ **Are**_ ," he corrects, grinning despite his obvious pain. " _ **You**_ **are** _ **my Gem, Raven, still. Else you would not have been so utterly terrified to face the measly wraiths and ghosts that remain in that library without my influence.**_ "

"I needed to take care of you, first. Your  _influence_ would bring them all up, if you were in me when I entered," she snarls back, failing to notice the sudden elongation of her canines.

" _ **Oh, please! If you were stronger than me, even if I**_ **did** _ **raise every single entity buried and embedded in that stone, you would wipe them away with a thought. Where's your supposed confidence,**_ **daughter**?"

Raven stares at him, her heart thudding in her chest.

"Fear was not my motivation."

" **Wasn't** _ **it**_?  _ **You must not like the humans very much, then.**_ "

"It's a calculated risk. Even if they fail, they'll make it out. Your sons won't be in any shape to do anything but scurry into the shadows with tails clasped between their legs."

" ** _Now, those humans who bow to my every word, and their small army of magicians, and the vampire who leads them, and a collection of magical weaponry, on the other hand… My sons may not be in the proper form, but that doesn't guarantee any escape for your…_ friends _, does it? All of which is meaningless in the face of the fact that there would be_ no  _chance of failure if you'd gone yourself. It stinks of cowardice, from where I'm hanging_**."

Raven's eyes flash red, and Trigon grunts as the power wraps more tightly around him.

His bones audibly creak, and several snap, under the pressure.

A disturbing satisfaction leaks into Raven's awareness as she watches blood leak from his decimated arm.

"You used Slade as an agent, knowing that I could turn him back to dust, because you knew doing it yourself would get you nowhere. You ended up using the lives of everyone I cared about to force my hand and release you. I will not be blamed of cowardice by  _you_ ," she snarls.

Her fist clenches, and the obelisk gives an echoing  _snap_ as her soul-self suddenly squeezes.

She watches as a crack tears through the stone, spreading through the entire structure.

Slowly, Trigon's lumbering form falls forward, the obelisk and his chains utterly snapping under her power.

Moving faster than she expects, her power expands and wraps his entire body in darkness, just before he crashes to the rocky ground.

He doesn't give the expected struggles, his head simply turning so he can focus all four eyes on her.

Something inside of her begins tearing at its cage at the sight of his confident, if pained, smirk.

" _ **Temper, temper, Raven, you're acting highly**_ **demonic** ," he mocks.

Alarms set off in the empath's mind, but she finds that her anger more than overpowers them.

And the part of her that takes pleasure in watching Trigon suffering at her hand begins to overtake her senses entirely.

Almost of its own will, her soul-self shrinks, and horrific, wet  _pop_ s and echoing  _crack_ s begin filling Nevermore.

A feral grin crosses her lips at his moan of pain.

The impression that something is wrong goes entirely ignored.

"I can see why you enjoy others' misery, Trigon. I'm certainly enjoying myself, though I could never do a tenth of the pain your existence has caused me."

His eyes narrow at her, and she takes a startling amount of satisfaction when she finds that his smirk is gone.

" _ **We both know this is an utterly futile effort. I'm nothing but energy. You can cause the illusion of pain, but it's not going to do anything since I don't have a real-**_ "

Raven's soul-self expands, and Trigon's eyes go wide as the darkness suddenly slips into his open mouth, cutting his statement off entirely.

"You have a shell. I can certainly cause you pain, whether you want to believe it or not."

As she speaks, the darkness flares into a bubble, and Trigon writhes at the sudden agony rippling through his throat.

When the sounds reach her ears, Raven gives a satisfied nod and lets the newest limb retract.

" _ **I should kill you where you stand, you wretched mistake**_!"

"Would if you could, Trigon, would if you could," she taunts.

His eyes explode with red light, and Raven dives to the side.

The next second, lava explodes in a geyser upward from the scorched land she'd been standing on.

Red smoke coils upward from the demon's eyes, and she notices that the slits within are dimmer from the lost energy.

"Oh, by all means, go on. It would be an experience itself to watch you snuff yourself out. It will save me the trouble."

" _ **End this already**_ ," he snarls. " _ **If you're**_ **so** _ **superior, prove it. Vacate me from your soul, and find out just how much of a chance you stand against my sons without my energy there for you to move off of, like a common parasite.**_ "

"If I just banish you from me, you'll have a way to speed up your return. Energy of yours that isn't locked down, for you to manipulate."

" _ **So smug you can defeat me, yet**_ **so** _ **terrified of facing me again.**_ **Pathetic** ," he mocks.

"However, I cannot let you remain here, corrupting my mind and soul, either," she continues as though he hadn't spoken. "Power or not, you're like a damaged battery, leaking acid even as I get the energy from you."

" _ **Then you face an interesting problem,**_ **daughter** _ **! You can't remove me, nor can you let me remain. And you certainly can't kill me, either. I'm fascinated to know what you think you're going to do**_."

Raven stares at him, indecision clear on her face.

A nagging thought whispers to the back of her mind, and her eyes widen when it fully forms.

Her stomach roils, her skin turning noticeably paler.

But her eyes glow with determination, as she walks slowly towards his crumpled body.

"When my mind was broken by the monks, to stay your influence, I had a similar problem. Rage was a part of your soul embedded in mine, as well. Luckily, I found a way to cope with it all a year ago."

For a moment, he simply stares at her.

And then realization sets in.

" _ **You're not serious**_."

"I've beaten you, and coped with the powers I gained from it. I murdered Wrath, and assimilated him so my mind wouldn't be corrupted. I think a third time won't do any harm."

" _ **I'll scorch your mind! I'll overtake you**_ ," he bellows.

His rage shakes the craggy ground, stone snapping under the force of it.

"I was stronger than you when first we faced, and I am stronger than your barren husk of a shell that yet remains now. You might even be below Jared at the moment, after how long I've siphoned from you. And that, too, gives me the advantage. My body has become accustomed to your energy, your power. You will not overtake me."

Something screams in the back of Raven's mind, but her focus dims the sound to a barely present whisper.

He stares up at her when she comes to a rest near his head, her eyes glowing a brilliant scarlet.

"Azarath Metrion  _Zinthos_!"

A beam of darkness lances from her outstretched palm, slamming into his forehead.

All four of his eyes turn obsidian, and a strange sense of fullness begins taking form in her.

She feels his power flowing into her, and watches in fascination as his body begins deflating.

Not literally, but she finds that his muscles begin loosening even further with every bit of power she pulls from him.

Distracted by the spectacle, she misses the way that red light slowly creeps into her soul-self from him.

But when she notices the feral grin curving his lips, she feels horror strike through her.

At the same time that she realizes she's no longer controlling the flow of his energy.

She attempts to back away, but finds that he simply continues pouring his essence into her mind, forcing her to remain rooted as her mind starts burning.

" ** _Let's put your theory on being acclimated to my power to the test, shall we,_ Raven**?"

Trigon's voice seems to echo around her, but she focuses her every bit of spare energy on blocking his awareness from burning through her awareness.

A laugh echoes somewhere, and the empath isn't sure if it's physical or in her mind.

The world explodes with white light, and an echoing scream ripples across the astral plane…

...

 _Author's Notes_ :

That was an especially fun chapter to write. As always, I look forward to any and all feedback. See you all next time!


	52. Will and Testament (Part III)

# LI. Will & Testament (Part III)

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx jolts to full alertness.

She curses at herself at the realization that, despite the situation, she'd let herself fall prey to her building exhaustion.

She casts her gaze around, looking for what caused even her exhaustion to lose out.

Something unsettling stirs in the air, as though the entire tower around them is preparing for a fight.

Her first instinct sends her looking toward the door, but finds nothing there that hadn't been there when she'd passed out.

A low, growling sound reaches her ears, then, and her entire body tenses.

Slowly, willing her instincts to be wrong, just this once, she looks down.

And with another curse, she finds the lover in her arms replaced by a shell of deep, scarlet skin and four eyes, all closed in a pained wince.

Before she can worry too much about it, though, a pulse of angry, powerful magic explodes in a wave from the demonling.

The metahuman finds herself tumbling through the air, the force of the magic easily throwing her entire weight.

Seeing the stone wall rushing for her skull, Jinx's eyes pulse with brilliant, pink light.

The air becomes heavy around her, and she quickly throws a torrent of magic at the barrier.

" _Kômala hô jānā_!" she screeches.

As soon as the words leave her, her body rams into the now-glowing wall.

A wheeze of breath jumps from her throat at the sudden, harsh impact.

As she slumps to the floor, she glares at her lover's floating body.

Thankfully, the magic had worked incredibly fast, mostly thanks to the impending death if it didn't.

Unfortunately, it hadn't been the pile of pillows she'd been hoping for.

As she fights to pull air into her traumatized lungs again, she glares at the way her fiancé is ignoring gravity.

All around her, black and red sparks snap through the air.

The room quickly begins reeking of ozone, and Jinx finds herself wondering if she's going to suddenly be blasted by magical lightning.

"Don't you fucking  _dare_ do this, Raven," she hisses once she's back on her feet.

The demonling gives no response, her face crumpling in a pain that the meta can do nothing about.

Jinx runs towards Raven, ignoring the sparks of magic around her.

A touch of serious worry comes to life when her shirt suddenly ignites, when it comes into contact with a few of the red sparks, though.

As she pats the irritating flames out, she feels tears made from a mix of emotions roiling beneath her eyes.

"Should've asked Fate to find me that damn mirror," she snarls.

Shaking her head to clear the burning sensation from her orbs, she raises both arms and points her palms towards Raven.

More magic flows through her, tingling starbursts of pink flowing from her fingertips.

" _U_ _ṭ_ _hō, tuma ōphphōha_!"

A blast of her hex energy lances straight into Raven's body.

For a period of exactly three seconds, Jinx curses once again, this time at her impulsiveness.

By the end of that time, Raven's body releases another pulse of light, and an ethereal fist of color explodes outward, retaliating against the perceived attack.

Jinx feels the stone give under her impact, and debris happily finds its way into any bit of the meta's exposed skin that it can.

Dust rises in a cloud around the meta, whose vision shifts between painfully too bright and sharp, and disturbingly dim and blurred.

Something twinges painfully in her mid-back as she draws in a shaky breath, and several other muscles throughout her body follow suit when her lungs expand.

In the pile of brick fragments she finds herself limply buried in, she finds she has a perfect view of Raven.

Even the incredible pain racking the meta's body does nothing to distract her from the terrifying display.

Like a terrible Jekyll and Hyde effect, Raven's body seems uncertain which form to take.

For every few seconds that she floats with red skin and a predatory animal's sleek build, she returns to being grey-skinned and somewhat spare for yet more.

A small explosion of white accompanies each shift, and the meta thanks the deities that she doesn't have epilepsy on top of her numerous other current problems.

Her heart squeezes at the low, barely-there whimpering sounds that accompany each shift.

"Please… Raven, don't. I can't do it," Jinx begs.

A wince crosses her face, even the small amount of air used for such a simple statement causing her chest to flare with minor pains and aches.

Suddenly, golden light floods the room, and Jinx looks up to find Doctor Fate taking the scene in.

She can't read his expression behind his mask, even less than usual as he stares at Raven's display.

He seems to be staring at something Jinx can't even begin to comprehend.

When his tensed body completely relaxes, though, and the barest of sighs of what could be relief reaches her ears, she, too, relaxes.

"Is… is she alright?" she croaks.

He turns his gaze to her, and by his reaction she wonders how bad she looks at the moment.

"She will be fine… Different, but fine. There's nothing we can do to ease her transition. Your pupils are mismatched," he observes.

"Freight train ran into me. Healing magic, please?" she practically begs as her vision begins dancing with massive black spots.

Her body is encased in golden light, and she hisses as she feels her bones mending themselves.

When she can breathe normally, the magic cuts off, leaving her with a great deal of remaining agony.

"Your magic and mine are… not overly compatible," Fate explains at her questioning look. "Anything further, and I may exacerbate the damage."

She nods in acceptance, finding herself grateful to be able to stand.

"That was pretty stupid of me. So… what's this about a  _transition_?"

She can guess just by looking at the empath's shifting body, but the fear tearing through her stomach makes her hope that she's wrong.

"I cannot say for certain. I can't see into her astral plane, and see what is currently happening, after all. But were I to guess, I would say she did something to purge Trigon from her mind."

Jinx's eyes widen, and her lips part slightly in surprise.

"We never said-"

"Give me  _some_ credit," he interrupts. "Only a handful of creatures could possibly have been the subject of your earlier discussion."

"Fair enough," she muttered with a suddenly burning blush. "So… she won?"

"Most likely."

Something feels strange in Raven's aura, but the meta gladly overlooks it in the face of her sudden hope.

Jinx breathes another heavy sigh of relief.

Her communicator starts buzzing in her pocket, causing her to jump.

Flipping it open, she finds herself staring at several faces.

She looks mostly at Nightwing, and the bruised and battered Titans behind his monitor.

"It's over."

She grits her teeth at the tone with which he delivers his news.

A worrisome spark of pink light sets off from her finger, the glass gaining a small crack as a result.

"Great. How'd things go badly?"

"Brother Blood kicked our asses," Cyborg groans from somewhere off-camera.

"For our part, they had a sorceress with them, who seemed to have a collection of traps lying in wait for any telepaths. I was very nearly knocked unconscious," the Martian Manhunter explains.

"And they had a whole stinkin' army of magicians, from what I could see," Gizmo adds.

"No kidding!" Zatanna screeches. "I couldn't even get into the building for a while, with how many barriers they'd set up. And nobody told me they had a members-only entrance in there until Cyborg got in, and by the time we figured out how to pry it open, they were all gone."

Jinx hears an ominous groan from the device beneath her hand, and with a start she realizes her hand is clenched to the point of making her knuckles white.

"Did you get any sense of where they went? Or how they got out?"

"It stunk like chaos magic, but there wasn't  _anything_  that told us who got them out, much less any kind of direction," Zatanna explains.

Jinx's eyes close, and her entire body tightens briefly before she forces a deep breath from her lungs.

"Fan-tastic. Nightwing, tell Batman to be ready. If he can figure out where they would be, being a detective and all, that'd be great, but he needs to be ready if he can't."

She watches as his eyes narrow behind his mask, anger curling his entire expression.

"You're no more qualified to tell me how to run my team than Raven is, Jinx. We could've gotten killed out there, while you and Raven were off-"

"Before you finish that thought, let me make you aware of the fact that Raven's unconscious, at the moment, and it ain't because she just decided to piss off for a nap," Jinx snaps.

A spark of pink lightning pops through the air behind her, and she quickly takes another calming breath.

It's just as unhelpful as the previous.

"We've been going non-goddamn-stop for days now. Your team got hurt. I get it. But there's more important things right now. If Raven wasn't sure that something would've happened to make things worse, we'd have taken care of the shit ourselves."

Nightwing releases a low growl, and his hand releases an echoing  _slam_ as it comes down on the console.

"It's a nice excuse, but we're  _all_  running on empty. If Raven's as strong as she acts, then she'd've been there, too. We might've reached her brothers if she'd been there to open the door."

Jinx's hair rises on a suddenly billowing wind, her eyes turning to pink lenses.

"Fuck you, Richard."

She notices him blink in surprise at her utterance, but the words act like an opened floodgate for the meta.

"Raven's been destroying herself taking care of this whole thing. Do you have  _any_ idea of the kind of shit that she's been putting on herself lately? She's in a damn coma right now because she's dealing with the shit that her family tends to cause. If she'd gone there, without dealing with this, the Church's magic would've raised the armies of Hell for you to deal with. Again. Don't know about you, but  _I_ prefer not giving them any more of an opening down there right now than they're already trying to make."

Something stirs in the air behind her, but Jinx ignores the hackles rising on her neck in favor of her anger.

"You want to talk about people? Do it to their faces. But she's not conscious at the moment, and I'm not going to tolerate it like she would. I'm not that nice, and I sure as  _hell_ am not in the mood."

A low whimper sounds, and Jinx feels the air turning cold.

It sends a spark of awareness through her, bringing her attention away from the angry Titan.

"Tell Batman, or don't. I don't give a shit. Just know that the tunnels are coming down in a few days, right on top of the demons, if he doesn't figure out where they'll be for us to contain them. However you want to play it, it's on you."

"When this is over, we're going to have a  _long_ talk, Jinx. We might have to make it an appointment in Belle Reeve, if we can't evacuate the city," Nightwing warns.

Jinx's entire body goes rigid, and Nightwing smirks somewhat at her inability to maintain a mask of non-reaction.

"When this is over, if me an' Rae are still alive, we have a list a mile goddamn long of people who want to have  _chats_. We won't be doin' anything _but_  talkin', and you sure as hell ain't the scariest on the list, so take a number,  _Richard_. And as for the rest of that… consider this your one, and  _only_ warning you're ever going to get, Bird Brain. I suggest you take that for what it's worth."

She smirks in satisfaction when his jaw drops.

"Same to you, Supes. You want to throw us in prison, go complain to all the monsters that want us dead first, and play politics with  _them_ to get your chance," she adds in dismissal to the still silent Kryptonian.

He opens his mouth to respond, but Jinx is faster at flipping her communicator closed.

"You aren't making many allies," Fate observes.

She lifts her shoulders in a halfhearted approximation of a shrug.

"We don't have the luxury of worryin' about long-term here. If we make it out, me an' Rae'll figure it out. I sure as hell ain't sittin' in a prison cell ever again."

Suddenly, the mystic is beside her, and she cringes at the feeling of him staring.

"You have leeway because of the organization you do not officially belong to, and the connections that don't officially exist anywhere. That leeway may not cover it if you crumble Gotham City, intentions to save the planet and universe as a whole or otherwise."

"I'm hopin' Wayne gets his shit together. The guy's smart. Hopefully he can figure it out, and we won't have to do anything of the sort."

Fate says nothing about the young metahuman knowing such a secret, though she can practically see his raised brow beyond the helmet.

"Batman is among the few in the League's upper echelons that are in your corner. I don't think it would remain that way, were you to crumble his house along with the rest of the city. And, I'm not sure how informed you truly are, but there's the threat of Superman's pocket dimensional prison. Even Raven would be powerless if she were trapped there. It drains every species that is lost there."

Jinx shudders at that, having not been aware of that little gem.

She settles herself with the secret she  _does_ know, though.

"We're not evil, and Superman ain't gonna' throw whoever he wants into someplace like you're describin' just 'cause he doesn't like us. And, on the off-chance I'm wrong… well, Raven might not know about it, but we both know that the Kryptonian would go down if he started a fight with us. He knows it, too."

Fate  _does_  turn towards her then, the vague sense she'd been getting of his expression vanishing.

"He would know that. And you are correct, he would be neither vain nor stupid enough to make an attempt, even if he doesn't like the methods employed for the good of the universe. Nonetheless, you'd stand better chances if you had the active aid of the Justice League and Titans."

She shrugs again, though a grimace crosses her face to join it this time.

"I ain't a politician, and I don't pretend to be. We were lucky we got them to help as much as we did. Gettin' them to jump in an' fight the demons with us, when at least a few of 'em probably think Rae's just the same as her brothers, ain't happenin'," she sighs.

The mystic's response is interrupted by a solid  _thump_ sounding on the stone behind them.

Suddenly tensing, she turns to face Raven, and her heart skips a beat.

The empath stands to her full height, her recent coma seeming to have no effect now.

While her skin is still grey, there is a pinkish glow to it now, as though her demonic form is projected dimly overtop of her.

Jinx's simply stares, not daring to so much as breathe.

Raven looks down at her hand, flexing it experimentally, as though unused to the sensation.

The meta reasons that it could be a matter of the muscles gracing her human form's physique being different from when she'd gone to Nevermore.

A more pessimistic part of her reasons that if Trigon was using her lover's body like a new suit, he would be unused to the way her body moves.

The inner war isn't helped any by the way that Raven's eyes glow a brilliant, bloody red, though there are only two of them.

Even more baffling is the power rolling from the empath's body.

The same somewhat cold sensation of her soul-self ripples through the air in waves.

Jinx has long since gotten used to the sensation, but something feels  _off_ about it now.

There's a harsher edge to it, as though each unconscious wave of her power is now stronger, and the world around her doesn't know how to react.

It hums across the meta's senses, as though caressing her skin.

Jinx finds the sensation slightly intoxicating, and this worries her even more.

Slowly, Raven's head rises from staring at her hand, and her blank expression morphs in an instant.

Jinx bites back a yelp when the demonling is standing next to her in the next blink.

She finds it very reassuring that she can still read the empath's expressions, and that there's worry instead of calculating how to murder her in her red eyes.

Raven's hand rises to cup the meta's cheek, a baffling guilty grimace shifting her expression.

"You're hurt."

Jinx shivers, finding the strange, slightly higher pitch to the demonling's voice shockingly pleasant to her ears.

"I, uh, I'm… fine," she mutters with a blush.

"I hurt you. I'm so sorry," Raven laments.

Darkness briefly coats Jinx's body, and when it's gone, her various injuries are gone without a trace.

Raven blinks, as though confused by her own powers.

The warm feeling rolling through Jinx cools in an instant.

With a nearly silent growl, the meta curses at the confused and terrified game of tennis her mind is playing with itself.

She ponders if Trigon would be able to impersonate Raven, if he'd won.

Would he be able to know just how to touch the meta so nothing seemed amiss?

The way to lower her tone  _just right_ to make it seem Raven is trying not to show how worried she was?

Raven takes a visual catalogue of the meta as the debate rages on.

"Technically,  _I_ hurt me," she mutters when she recalls the empath's words. "I freaked out, and tried waking you up. Entirely my fault."

Raven makes a low hum in response, though the meta can't decide what the sound signifies.

"Hey, Rae?"

The empath's eyes move up to meet her own, and Jinx desperately searches for some sign, one way or the other, of who she faces in their red depths.

"It seems she's neither entirely Raven, nor Trigon," Doctor Fate says.

Both women jump, but don't break the eye contact.

Jinx finds that she has to agree with the mystic's assessment, though.

"So, uh… how're things?" she asks, immediately wincing at how awkward it sounds.

Raven's head tilts to the side in response, her lips pursing in thought.

"I am not entirely sure. Things got a tad out of my control."

"But you beat him, right?"

Raven's eyes snap shut, a hand going to her forehead as though to help her mind.

"I… think so," she finally mumbles. "I was absorbing his powers, and then he decided to speed the process up on his own, hoping to burn my consciousness away with the rapid influx. There was a lot of pain, and I was fairly certain I was going to die."

"Well, you ain't dead," the meta points out.

She finds herself wanting so desperately for Raven to be the same, but is terrified of the empath's own confusion on the matter.

"Indeed. I obviously didn't fall to it. But… I can't remember anything past the pain. And his damned laughing. I have no idea what happened."

"He may have simply burned his remaining power out before your ability to defend against him failed," Fate speculates.

"A definite possibility," she agrees with a nod.

"But…?" the meta reluctantly prompts.

"But something doesn't feel quite right. I do not feel as though he's there, but considering that I didn't before, either, that tells me nothing. I definitely feel stronger, but if he did something to me, it could easily be something he did for his own benefit."

"Y'know, I gotta' say, your old man could give lessons to Brother Blood and the Dreaming both on effective mindfucks," Jinx grumbles.

"Indeed. He's wretched like that. Or was. Maybe. Because if I  _did_ defeat him, there is no more Trigon. I'm certain what remained of him was what was in Nevermore… And there wasn't much of that. But even weak, he was still powerful."

"Well, ain't this peachy? We can head down to the library and see what happens, if you want," the meta offers, grasping at straws.

Raven briefly nods, before her eyes widen in horror.

"I… can't. What if he's subtly implanted himself into my subconscious? He could tamper with my soul-self. If he's there and decided to tamper with the barrier…"

Jinx feels her stomach roil, the thought of her atoms splintering apart between dimensions turning her decidedly green.

"Oh-kay.  _That's_ an image I never needed."

"If I may interject, before you both draw yourselves into hyperventilation?" Doctor Fate asks.

The women turn as one, but only Jinx jumps at finding the mystic a mere two or three steps away from them.

"If one such as Trigon were in you, it would show through your aura. Even with your demonic blood fully seated with your humanity, you would be noticeably less human."

"But he was in my head, for who knows how long, already. He may have gleamed some way to hide. I didn't even notice him until the Dreaming revealed his presence."

"There's a way to be certain. Allow me access to your mind. If Trigon is still alive, and is hiding in your psyche, he will not survive for long."

Raven tenses, her eyes going wide in surprise.

"But if he's there, then he may lash out at you, too. I-"

"Trigon was a powerful being. But even if he remains, you've weakened him well past the point where he could harm me," Fate reasons.

Jinx remains silent, finding herself unsure of how she feels over the whole thing.

Raven gives a nearly imperceptible nod, and the air in the room seems to shift with her agreement.

Doctor Fate's eyes glow a brilliant gold within his mask, and Jinx watches as a similar color begins burning through Raven's own orbs.

His eyes glow a brilliant gold within his mask, and Jinx watches as a similar color begins burning through Raven's own orbs.

The orange color of the two combining is an odd mixture, reminding Jinx of Etrigan's fire.

Raven's body entirely relaxes, her only movement the slight swaying of her legs as she remains locked in Fate's stare.

The golden light spreads through the entire room, and Jinx finds herself feeling decidedly weak-kneed as it slams into her senses.

She quickly visualizes a bubble of white light forming around her, and she breathes a heavy sigh of relief when the barrier takes form.

While not a skill she practices nearly enough, the meta finds herself incredibly glad that it works at the moment.

The other two remain oblivious to her, both their bodies turning to solid ankhs of golden magic in the air.

" _Animus mundantur aliqua anomalias contaminantium ut reveletur._ "

Fate's voice echoes, as though a thousand voices speak through him at once.

Jinx's barrier falters, and she grits her teeth as his magic abrades against her mind.

Suddenly, she understands what the mystic had been talking about.

While not exactly painful, the sensation is incredibly uncomfortable, as though her entire body is being massaged with pins.

Fate places a hand on the empath's forehead, and then the air shifts.

Jinx  _does_ fall to her knees then.

She realizes that the room is no longer being enchanted by Doctor Fate.

The incredible, overpowering presence in the air is far, far older than anything any human could possibly wield.

The mystic's body becomes entirely obscured in the burning ankh of magic, but the Helm of Nabu remains distinctly detailed.

The awareness briefly passes over the meta, drawing a shudder from her, before it settles on the still demonling.

" _Quod omne malum, quod si sint in animo facere, corpus et animam, deleo te murus in rebus, non est reversa ultra ad_!"

The voice coming from the helmet isn't the chorus that Fate's had been mere seconds earlier.

Instead, it's one distinct, echoing voice.

No words come to the meta's mind to describe the voice, except for power.

Nabu's voice is raw, unfiltered magical power, and in its presence, Jinx feels the Chaos magic coursing in her veins beginning to heat up.

Raven's body jerks violently, and her eyes burn a brilliant red through the swirling gold surrounding her.

Her expression remains impassive, though, showing no actual signs of pain, or even discomfort, despite her movements.

" _Dominium dominis sub ordine tenebris abdere ejeci te, si insidiari! Vade!_ "

The empath's spine suddenly arcs, as though lightning is running through her.

Her mouth drops open in a silent scream, and for a brief moment, Jinx  _does_ see a string of golden light stabbing from somewhere above into her forehead.

The light floods her chakra gem, and the gold easily overpowers any red in the gem.

And then, it ends.

As though nothing had happened in the first place, leaving no traces of the incredible magic they'd just been witness to.

Jinx blinks before staring in open-mouthed awe at Raven.

She suddenly drops to her knees, wheezing noisy breaths out as golden smoke begins rising from her hunched form.

Jinx almost joins her, feeling a disturbing wateriness building in the back of her throat.

She can't put into words how much she's glad they have the mystic on their side, in that moment.

Because they would  _never_ stand a chance.

"Apologies. I can't imagine that was pleasant," Doctor Fate muses in his same, usual voice.

Raven waves him off, her eyes closed in a pained wince.

"I… should've left the room," Jinx groans.

"You handled it well, actually. Were it someone like Wotan, survival would have been dubious, and coming away unscathed unthinkable," he offers with what Jinx thinks might be a shrug.

Or it could be her shaking body making her imagine the motion.

"Me not being evil, confirmed… Cool," she says as a hand moves to hold her stomach.

"Seconded," Raven wheezes, though with a very slight smile.

The empath's eyes widen, and Jinx wonders at the queasiness that suddenly forms on  _her_ expression then.

"Were I more demonic, what would've just happened?" the demonling asks, her voice quiet and trembling slightly.

Doctor Fate's head tilts sideways slightly, clearly listening to something the mask is telling him.

"Demonic or not has nothing to do with that. Granted, it  _hurts_ because you're naturally aligned with Chaos magic, moreso than even Jinx, given your heritage, and the nature of having my own magic used on you is never going to be a  _pleasant_ experience. But I purged evil, not Chaos, nor demon blood."

"So… we're certain, then? Trigon doesn't remain?" she asks hopefully.

"Had Trigon been present in your mind, you would be unconscious when he was forcefully removed. As you are only in a fair bit of pain, he was not," the mystic explains.

Raven suddenly drops all the way to the floor, a relieved grin revealing itself on her lips when she rolls over.

Despite the incredible discomfort racking her body, Jinx finds herself grinning, as well.

"Ya' kicked his ass, again. Good goin', Rae," she quips.

"I'll go prepare a room for the two of you," Doctor Fate says. "One with a ward. Neither of you are doing any more magic or psychic travel until your souls recover."

Jinx almost makes a snarky remark at the mystic.

The flash of memory before her eyes of what she'd just witnessed, though, ensures it will always remain as  _almost_.

She slowly makes her way over to Raven's side before collapsing.

"Seriously. When this shit's done, vacation. Anywhere I pick," she mutters.

Raven takes a long time to answer, almost making the meta think she'd fallen asleep.

When her stomach stops undergoing its odd flipping sensation, she turns her head to face the meta's.

"We'll make it a honeymoon. Anywhere you want," she finally agrees.

Jinx smirks, finding the new red cast to her lover's eyes far less frightening now that she's sure it's purely Raven behind the color.

"Might have to hop a dimension or two. Throw the people off so that our list can't catch up with us until we've relaxed for  _at least_ a week."

The empath mirrors her smile, her hand reaching out.

The meta doesn't think twice about grabbing her hand.

When they make contact, both women jerk, and pink and black energy rolls around their entwined fingers.

The magic sparks through the air for several seconds, forming a small band that coils from Jinx's wrist to Raven's.

And then, it disappears, and both women find their aches gone.

In its place, an incredible, soul-deep weariness takes form, dark rings forming under both their eyes.

"Have I told you how  _awesome_ it is to have a girlfriend with compatible magic?" Jinx muses in a slightly breathy voice.

"Sweet-talker," the empath laughs in response, even as her eyes start slipping closed.

"Are you tired, too?"

"No more… bottomless pit to tap," Raven muses as her awareness begins to darken.

"Welcome to mortality. It's a bitch."

Raven makes a quiet hum in agreement, before the exhaustion finally beats her.

Jinx watches as the empath entirely relaxes, finding it disturbing how it's the most relaxed Raven has looked in months, outside an occasional day or two.

Doctor Fate returns to the room shortly afterward, his presence now sending the meta's senses on edge.

"It won't go away."

She looks up at him in confusion, her pink eyes seeming dim and somewhat glassy.

"You've been witness to Nabu's power. Your mind will never forget the sensation, no matter how much you might end up hoping it would when in my presence," he elaborates.

"Little uncomfortable, but I'll get used to it. He's freaky as shit, but you've helped us too much for it to get to me too bad."

A huff of pained air escapes her as she stands, finding herself distressingly unsteady on her feet.

"I have a room ready. I had one of my other guests balance the warding out, so your recovery will be improved instead of hindered."

She nods, his words barely registering as her vision dims around the edges.

With a surprising ease, she slips Raven's prone body off the floor, supporting them both.

"I fear that I can't help carry her, or you, for that matter, at the moment. Even if you can adapt over time to the new awareness you both have, you're both too vulnerable at the moment."

She can practically see his apologetic wince behind the helmet's covering, and offers him a small smile.

"It's cool. You've already helped us a ton today. Can't get lazy or anythin'," she offers.

With that, she hobbles after the mystic, finding the dimness around her sight to be growing worse with each stop.

By the time they reach their temporary room, Jinx is nearly joining her lover in her unconsciousness.

She briefly registers a warm, soft feeling suggestive of a bed beneath her, as both women drop limply.

And then, the world fades away, the thrum of the healing magic working over them down to the very soul acting as a blissful lullaby…  
...

 _Author's Notes_ :

Kômala hô jānā- Hindi: "Become soft"

Uṭhō, tuma ōphphōha!- Hindi: "Wake up, goddamn you!" (roughly)

"Animus mundantur aliqua anomalias contaminantium ut reveletur."-  _Latin_ : "Let the mind be cleansed, and may any anomalies and contaminants be revealed. "

"Quod omne malum, quod si sint in animo facere, corpus et animam, deleo te murus in rebus, non est reversa ultra ad!"- Latin: "All evil, if you do reside within this one's mind, body, or soul, I banish thee, into the wall separating realities, to never return again!"

"Dominium dominis sub ordine tenebris abdere ejeci te, si insidiari! Vade!"- Latin: "Under the domain of the Lords of Order, I cast thee out if you hide in the shadows in wait! Begone!" (very roughly)

Okay, so I had a long debate on this chapter. Two main issues presented themselves, namely whether to show the fight at the library, and whether to draw out Raven's torment over her doubts.

On the first issue, I decided that it's not really relevant to Raven and Jinx's story. I may write the scene out as a side-story down the road, but for the purposes of this particular story, I decided in the end that it wasn't necessary.

For the second one, I went back and forth for a while. Pacing-wise, I can't say that it's to the betterment of the story to essentially jump over that plot thread. And it could have made for an interesting story in itself. However, on a story level, it would make no sense whatsoever to have them be in Doctor Fate's presence, and to have him simply let Raven suffer like that. In the end, I decided to take a hit on the pacing in favor of the story's logic.

Hopefully, you all enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I did writing it. However, I'm open to any critiques on how you think it was handled. So I look forward to that, and I'll see you all next time!


	53. Devil's Advocate

# LII. Devil's Advocate

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

The Watchtower floods with a brief flash of golden light.

Several of the heroes sitting around the large, steel table look up at their latest arrival.

Doctor Fate walks without pause towards the assembly, briefly nodding to several of the other mystics gathered.

"You called?" he asks, sounding vaguely annoyed behind the echo his helmet gives his voice.

As he takes a seat, he lets his mind catalogue the heroes present.

Most are not surprising, given his suspicions on why Superman called the meeting in the first place.

Magicians line the table on both sides, with a few of the League's less magical members interspersed.

Seeing Etrigan leaning against a wall, glowering at the Kryptonian, is surprising, however.

As is seeing Batman in a similar position at the back of the room, the Martian Manhunter and a younger version of Wonder Woman on either side of him.

His assessment finishes in seconds, and only one or two of those present seem to fidget or indicate in any way that they're aware that he's done so.

"That's everyone, then," Superman announces.

The Kryptonian stands up, and casts a gaze around everyone in the room.

"I need a better understanding of what we're looking at here."

"A waste of time ta' soothe yer' bloody ego," Etrigan sneers.

Superman glares at the demon, who simply curls his lip even further in response.

"All of you here know about Raven. Some of you, we consulted with when she first came to us asking for help, others have heard about her either from the reputation she's been earning over the past few months, or even just her actions over the past few days," he starts again.

"What I want to know is if she's right."

Several people seem surprised, including the berate demon.

"I want to stay ahead of this. We've only got a few days, and I need to get opinions and facts about the whole situation. I don't touch magic, and that means I'm not someone that can say he knows everything. She plans to kill her brothers in cold blood to stop them from freeing Hell. Are there other ways to stop them?"

"Not really, nah," a heavy cockney accent muses.

Eyes turn to a blond detective, his feet up on the table and a bored expression on his face.

"It can't be that simple," Zatanna argues from directly across the table of Constantine.

"Doctor Fate, you've worked with them a number of times," Superman interrupts the budding argument. "In fact, I understand she and Jinx have been in refuge in your tower the past two days?"

There's more than a small amount of suspicion in the alien's question.

Fate gives no reaction, though he finds the doubt no less irritating.

"They're nearly recovered. Their bodies are mended by this point, but they remain still unconscious while their souls and minds repair themselves and recuperate within a barrier to increase the speed of their recovery while also keeping them completely safe from any who would seek to harm them," he agrees.

Superman's eyes narrow slightly in response, Fate's own insinuation seeming to hit the mark perfectly.

"What's your assessment? Is Raven just looking to kill them, and using this whole thing as a justification for murder? Are these Sons of Trigon really _that_ dangerous, if she thinks she can take them all out herself?"

The mystic straightens in his chair, feeling all the attention in the room on him.

Zatanna, though, beats him to speaking.

"Or, another way of looking at it, is how dangerous is Raven if she can beat five powerful, psychotic demons that share her heritage, on her own? Hell, she might be as strong as Trigon himself. Not to mention she's dating a Lord of Chaos, which Nabu's people are born to fight," she ends with a mutter.

Fate briefly glances at the irate sorceress, before returning his full attention to Superman.

"Raven has a pathological need to work in the name of Order. Part of it is that she was born in Azarath, a dimension of pacifists who left this realm to escape the evils of humanity. Yet more comes from the fact that she grew up believing she would inevitably become the key for her father's reign, and so she worked to build up a karmic balance in the hopes that it would negate such a fate."

"Which didn't pan out, considering that Trigon got here thanks to her," Zatanna argues.

"A lot thanks ta' you, harpy, so I wouldn't be bringin' that up jus' now," Etrigan berates.

"Hang on a minute. She grew up with  _pacifists_?" Superman asks in surprise.

"That's what I understand of Azarathian society, yes," Fate responds with a nod. "She, herself, is not born from Azarath herself, though, so it is of no real surprise that such a black and white view didn't remain long once she got here."

"You can say that again."

Fate briefly glares at Zatanna, watching her straighten up and a light blush form on her cheeks.

"She nonetheless is not an agent of evil and Chaos. Since I've known her, she's done everything in her power to protect people where she can, and to help her loved ones. That isn't just Jinx, or even the Titans despite her rather unfortunate departure, but humanity in general."

"Damn right," another voice interrupts, nearly drawing an exasperated sigh from the mystic.

Troia's hands move to her hips, glaring openly at Zatanna.

"I'd understood that you only met her once or twice," Superman muses in surprise. "I'd asked you here because you know mythology. Do you have an opinion on Raven?"

"Everyone here's got an opinion on Raven, whether it's good or not. She was draining herself down in Jump, wrapping heroes and villains alike in her freaky magic so her brother didn't cause us to kill each other. You, too,  _Zatanna_ ," the blonde adds with an even harsher glare. "She could've just let us deal with it and gone for her brother's head the second he showed up. But she didn't."

Zatanna squirms, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"She… may have, yeah."

Her eyes narrow, then, covering the discomfort easily.

"On the other hand, she practically gave a magical WMD over to an immortal psychopath, if what we've heard about Stonehenge is true. And let's not forget that, if those reports are true, Jinx destroyed Stonehenge, a magic circle that's stood for millennia absorbing magic that's been poured into that land."

"A miscalculation," Fate cuts in, bringing the attention away from their squabbling once again.

He feels the urge to rub at his temples, suddenly, though knows the helmet would hinder such a movement.

"A particularly unfortunate miscalculation, to be certain, but Raven didn't return Excalibur thinking that it would be immediately set upon. And she wasn't corrupted by that sword's power, a feat that I'm sure most in here would be unable to pull off."

"Damned thing's cursed," Etrigan agrees.

"As for your claim that she may be the next Trigon, Zatanna, you ignore things. There are a number of factors keeping that from happening, but chiefly, she is half human, and she thrives on that aspect of herself. Loathes her father and everything he stood for in her mind. Including Chaos."

"You're not seriously saying she's not dangerous!" the sorceress argues, mouth agape.

"She can be," he agrees with a curt nod. "She didn't join your assault on the Church of Blood's library because of that fact. Instead, she was trapped in her own mind, destroying the last remnant of Trigon that remained in this reality, which had been planted in her mind and been festering for quite some time. Had she gone there, he would have likely used the moment of weakness brought on from the Church of Blood's defenses draining her, and then she  _would_ have been Trigon."

"Wait…  _That's_ why she was unconscious when Jinx picked up?"

Superman looks aghast at the idea, and several others pale slightly at the notion of Trigon being in Raven's mind.

"When she visited the realm of Morpheus, it seems she was made aware of his presence. She'd been drawing from him. Gaining more strength and energy while slowly killing his awareness in the process. These past months are likely the sole reason she isn't ripping the Hellmouth open herself under Trigon's control right now. She assimilated everything that was left of him. As you said, Zatanna, she is powerful. Now, she is almost certainly on an even level with Trigon when he was in his prime. But as many, many heroes throughout the universe have proven, having power does not equate to her being a danger to the world, or universe."

"Which is fine and all. Nobody'd accuse Nabu's power of making the wearer of that helmet evil. But she admitted that she sat down and had a chat with the actual, literal devil," Superman argues. "I picked up enough growing up to know that the guy's pure evil."

A derisive snort sounds, drawing the alien's glare to a clearly amused Constantine.

" _Pure evil_ ," he laughs. "Right."

"You think that's really that funny?" Zatanna demands.

The detective's expression hardens, and slowly, he moves to an upright position in his chair.

The movement seems to make him taller, and several people in the room shiver as the air seems to grow just a touch colder with his mirth vanished.

"This world ain't black and white. There's no such damn thing as  _pure evil_ , if you're applyin' it to opinions from generational accounts. Get off yer' high horse."

He raises his arm, and an index finger slowly moves across every mystic in the room as he speaks.

"Every single, solitary magic wielder in this room, including Fate, and yes, even you,  _Zatanna_ , have done our fair share of deals and truces with devils and monsters of all kinds. You think that because she talked to  _tha' one_ , she's somehow less n' any of the resta' us? He's not even technically a demon. Apathetic bastard, ta' be sure, if the rumors I've heard are true, but he doesn't go out actively plotting to be evil like the First of the Fallen."

Zatanna cringes under the harsh glare, but the detective simply returns to his relaxed position, as though his irritation had never existed in the first place.

"'Sides," he sighs, "he was only a steppin' stone, anyway. Sent them on their way to where they actually got the information we're all actin' on. And there's  _no one_  in this room, 'cept  _maybe_  Nabu, who can say anythin' about the character of the creatures they got their information from. I'd dare anyone stupid enough ta' try to go ahead an' badmouth a species as old as this universe."

The room is deathly quiet, a distinct discomfort floating through the air like a miasma.

Fate clears his throat after a small, torturous eternity, breaking the atmosphere.

"I agree," he states. "The fact that she talked with that man is understandably troubling, but irrelevant in the scheme of things. They received their information, as Constantine says, from beings that are older than even Nabu can fathom and will be the last beings left before the universe is ended. And considering that the Lords of Order and Chaos are considered the first beings that existed in this universe, you can understand why questioning their information isn't wise."

He turns his gaze again to the young sorceress, causing her to stiffen.

"Also, a point of correction. Jinx isn't a Chaos Lord. She's simply a metahuman."

"Oh, come on! She throws around wild Chaos magic just by  _breathing_! The world decays just by being in her presence. Not that I've been around too many Lords of Chaos, but-"

"You're right. You haven't. Attracting chaos, and even wielding chaos magic, is not enough to make someone one of their kin."

"Not ta' take tha' harpy's side, ere, but she ain't no simple human, either," Etrigan cuts in.

Zatanna finds herself debating whether the insult or the agreement with her opinion is more important.

The demon stares at Fate, his expression hard.

"She's an admittedly very powerful metahuman, with an inherently dangerous and chaotic ability to begin with, who adds to it by using magic. By training in advanced magic over the years, it's become even more potent, even as it's gotten more under her control. But, in the end, she's still just a metahuman," the mystic disagrees.

"A metahuman isn't goin' ta' roll through Hellfire an' come out the other side without a mark."

"Are you saying that Jinx did that?" Constantine asks.

While his voice is still utterly bored, his expression perks up in barely hidden interest, the thought a curious one.

Even he wouldn't touch that stuff.

"This would have been when you were with her in Stonehenge," Fate guesses.

"I was burnin' the damned circle so she didn' kill 'erself doin' it 'erself, an' the meta fell right inta' the flames. I was still thinkin' a' ways to keep Raven from tryin' ta' figure out howta' kill an immortal when she started absorbin' it."

Fate feels his brow knitting together, the information news to him, as well.

"Do you mean that the flames died around her, or that they were drawn into her body?" he asks.

"No idea. Le Fey attacked, an' I didn't see everythin'. But afore the harpy got me, her whole damned soul turned black as night, and my Hellfire started dyin' out like it was a doused candle. Hellfire ain't tha' easy ta' put out."

"You're right. That is…  _abnormal_ ," Fate concedes. "However, a Chaos Lord would not have an ability like that any more than any other creature."

"But if she did something like that, she's  _definitely_ not a human, either," Zatanna reasons. "There's nothing that should be able to do that to Hellfire. It's embodied Chaos magic, made from weaponizing cursed souls."

"You throw that around?" Superman asks while turning decidedly pale.

Etrigan shrugs, seeming completely unbothered by the horror showing in the Kryptonian.

"I'm a demon. Whaddya' expect, tha' I unleash black fires that turn the world cold made from puppies an' unicorns?"

"So what the hell can  _absorb_ that kind of thing?" Zatanna demands. "Only demons can even really touch the stuff."

"Which Jinx is decidedly not," Fate agrees. "It  _is_ a mystery."

The mystic frowns in thought, the expression hidden behind his helmet.

Since they'd met, Jinx has always had an odd aura, as though made from a human but mixed with traces of things decidedly not.

He finds himself wondering if assumptions made since the onset are incorrect.

"For now, let's chalk it up to something to be looked into. She's helping us deal with the immediate problem, and until we don't have Hell trying to break free, it can wait."

The gruff voice sends a wave of surprise through the room, drawing eyes to Batman.

The hero remains stoic as ever, betraying nothing of the thoughts hidden under his mask.

"We don't know what we're dealing with, here," Zatanna argues. "For all we know, she could be something-"

"Whatever the case may be about  _what_ Jinx is,  _who_ she is is not a matter of question," Fate interrupts. "She is, as Raven is, committed to staying Hell's release. Batman's correct. We must deal with the universal threat, before worrying about matters of intrigue."

"So this isn't just some justification for her?" Superman asks, returning the discussion to its origin.

"There is likely some part of her that is using that way. When it comes to her family, or rather her demonic family, there's likely no one in this reality that loathes everything her heritage and everything associated with it stands for than her. However, she is not bloodthirsty. Not only does fighting her brothers have obvious physical risks, but there are mental dangers as well. Because of what she and they are, killing them means she draws their essence in on their defeat, as it did with Trigon. Defeating one of her brothers caused issues, and while she dealt with them and it was likely the worst she will deal with, five more at once may very well cause her to become comatose, if she lives through the battle at all."

"An' she knows that?" Constantine asks before releasing a sharp whistle. "That's one badass witch."

The others remain quiet, a very different impression of Raven apparently taking form in the majority of heroes present.

Even Zatanna wears an expression suggesting the beginnings of respect.

"Further, she is correct. At the end of this episode, there is Hell ripping the seams of the universe free, or there are five dead half-demons," Fate continues. "If she kills them, they will obviously meet that end. But even were we to intervene and simply keep the ritual from occurring, they will end up being ripped apart by celestial warriors of some variety, and will still, in the end, be met with death. If I'm honest, Raven would be the less cruel of the options."

There's a decidedly green cast to Superman's skin as he imagines it.

"Anyone here think we  _shouldn't_ help Raven?" Troia demands with a raised brow.

Nobody voices a disagreement.

"So that's that, then," Superman sighs. "We'll help her. When everything's over, we can deal with all the other things."

The statement seems to set everyone into action, all the people gathered rising from their chairs.

"I've got some ideas on where they might be planning to use," Batman offers. "I'm still looking into it."

"And we'll need to evacuate the city, one way or the other," Superman adds.

"An' who's gonna' be keepin' an eye on the two of 'em in the meantime?" Constantine, the only person still seated, asks.

He snorts at Superman's upraised brow, not buying the Kryptonian's nonchalance for a second.

"Don't give me that. You'll help them, sure. But I ain' buyin' for a second that you aren't plannin' to trap Raven and Jinx the secon' that they've gotten things taken care of."

"If they get this done and don't hurt anyone but the Sons of Trigon, then I'm willing to let it go. Apparently, over the last few months and weeks, they've gotten plenty of people after them, anyway. If they hurt a single civilian, though… I'll take care of it," he swears.

"Feh! Like you'd get close enough ta' throw somethin' at them, considerin' yer'…  _discomfort_ ," Etrigan laughs.

Superman's eyes narrow dangerously on the demon, which earns another snort from Constantine.

"He ain't wrong, alien. Even if they  _did_ go off and start killin' whoever they pleased, you're just about the worst person in the whole League to take care of it."

"Nabu will handle things."

The trio go silent, looking at Doctor Fate in silence.

The mystic stands tall, allowing a small portion of Nabu's aura leak free to give himself more presence.

"I will not make absolute assurances on their strength of character and let things slide on the one in a trillion chance that all my observations thus far are wrong. Raven and Jinx are powerful, and are skilled as a team. Keep in mind that, though they ultimately failed in their fight against Wotan, they managed to hurt him, nonetheless. Even for powerful magicians, it would likely be very fatal to take them lightly. If something happens in those tunnels to change them, then I will use all the power afforded to me as Doctor Fate to protect humanity, and the universe at large."

The mystic briefly wonders if he should mention that no outcome he had seen of the coming battle had ended with him destroying the pair.

The easy way in which all three agree to his statement, however, makes him decide against it just then, lest his growing headache be made even worse with more bickering.

"You'd be the best man for the job to notice anything," Superman agrees.

Zatanna very briefly appears as though she wants to say something.

Just as her mouth opens, however, she gives a minuscule shake of her head and seems to think better of it.

With a nod from the Kryptonian, the mystics filling the room vanish in varying forms of teleportation.

In a matter of a few seconds, only Batman and Doctor Fate remain in the room, the acrid scent of Etrigan's Hellfire hanging in the air as the detective moves towards him.

"You didn't tell Superman everything, Hall," he accuses.

Though his voice is lowered to intimidate, as it always is, Fate feels some amusement mixed in with the tone.

"I told him what is important, Mr. Wayne. The Sons of Trigon must be stopped, and Raven and Jinx are both on the side of Order. These are the facts that are important immediately. They can't afford to attempt to evacuate the city  _and_ fight her brothers as well, nor would they have the clout or support to do so."

"And Clark, on the other hand," Batman muses with a nearly imperceptible smirk.

"Gotham has many stubborn people. The civilians will clear out if it comes from him, and other important members of the JLA, that they'll be in immediate danger there."

"And all the thieves that'll use it as an opportunity? The murderers who will use the fallout as a smokescreen?"

"I imagine the fight will be very contained. Out with not a bang, but a whimper, I believe."

He feels the detective's eyes on him from behind the white lenses of his mask, his expression guarded once again.

"Anywhere they fight down in those tunnels, the city above's going to get damaged from it. If they fight in a particularly ugly place, they could topple most of Gotham, and there are a few of those down there."

Fate says nothing in response to the unanswered question in the air, earning a glare from the detective.

"What're you planning, Hall? What's that helmet shown you? Obviously, whatever it was needs for you to be down there,  _looking after_ those two, and keeping Superman and the rest of us out."

"It's nothing as scheming as all that," the mystic responds with a shrug. "Six demons and a metahuman who can channel magic like a demon will be fighting several hundred feet below the ground. The less people down there, the better. And I need to be there, as well, to contain the damage if something  _does_ happen. Raven stands the best chance, but I have backup plans in place, just in the event that it goes awry. That gate  _can't_  open."

"And Jinx?"

"What about Jinx?"

"I know more than the D.M.A. likes to think," Batman states. "I know that girl's history.  _All_  of her history. She's definitely a metahuman. But why do I get the feeling that you know what's going on with her? Someone that's not a demon but can take on Hellfire can only be dangerously unstable, from what I understand of magic."

Fate shrugs, meeting his hidden gaze without trouble.

"The news of her taking in Hellfire is honestly news to me. I've always assumed she is what she appears in physical, mental, and mystical forms she walks around in."

"But you know something anyway," Batman challenges.

"I have a theory or two," he agrees. "Until I perform some tests, I won't know anything for certain. And right now, there are more important things to concern ourselves with."

"Unless it turns out that Raven wasn't the only one pulling from Trigon's power."

Fate grimaces behind the helmet, the unpleasant thought one of the more worrying he'd had since Etrigan had mentioned it.

The detective is more astute than even he gives credit for, at times.

"I have theories," he repeats. "I am… reasonably positive that isn't the case. And if it was, I've already taken care of the matter. It was not my intention, but when I assured Raven that Trigon is gone from her mind, Jinx was also present. It would have purged him from her mind, as well. There is no doubt that Trigon is truly dead, now, in as much as any immortal can really die. He won't be able to recuperate and make another attempt on the universe for several more millennia."

"And if he'd corrupted her mind in the meantime?" Batman demands with a frown.

"Time will tell. Again, it's only one theory I have. Another is similar, except instead of Trigon, it's Raven. With how close they are, it would not be impossible that their auras would merge even further at times than what I'd previously observed. They very easily mixed their auras and minds together in Morpheus's realm. A feat that would be made easier if their souls, already baring similar magic and energy, have adapted and melded somewhat over the past year. It would give her a higher capability of resisting demonic magic and influence."

"I don't like how either of those can play out. If Raven really did get warped, maybe influenced by her brothers, and had that much influence over Jinx, do you honestly like your chances of stopping them?"

"Nabu is stronger still than either of them."

"That isn't what I asked."

Fate shrugs once more, refusing to break eye contact first.

Batman's frown deepens, and finally he turns away with a shake of his head.

"Fine. Whatever happens will be on your head if my theory turns out to be right and we end up in an apocalypse because of it. At any rate, whenever they wake up, send them to Wayne Manor. Raven's input could speed up figuring out where her brothers will be."

"Alright. Whenever they wake up, send them to Wayne Manor. Raven's input could speed up figuring out where her brothers will be."

The mystic simply nods before Batman storms off, clearly agitated.

Once again, the Watchtower floods with golden light, and Doctor Fate vanishes, leaving the entire station feeling colder, somehow…  
...

 _Author's Notes_ :

At first, I was debating using a lot more of the DC mystics, but in the end, I decided that, this late into the story, I should probably stick with the ones I've introduced. And I had a lot of fun writing the bickering. Overall, I enjoyed writing this chapter and making some of the associations the girls have made pay off. I hope you've all enjoyed, as well. Either way, be sure to let me know, and I'll see you all next time!


	54. Planning

# LIII. Planning

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx looks up as golden light once again fills Fate's Tower.

The metahuman has been awake roughly since the time Doctor Fate received his call, the echoing shrill of sound stirring her.

A ripple of very unpleasant sensation runs through her entire body as the mystic's magic briefly reaches her again.

And then, it's gone, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

Raven, however, violently shivers in her unconsciousness, nothing but a thin layer of healing magic keeping her separated from the grating magic.

Jinx pulls the empath closer to herself, violet hair feathering out along her stomach.

The demonling makes a quiet murmuring sound, and after squirming for a few seconds, settles back down in the meta's embrace.

Fate takes the scene in, Jinx's expression incredibly soft as she helps her sleeping lover become more comfortable.

It takes nearly a full minute before pink, feline eyes lift up and meet his own gaze, a light blush creeping across her cheeks.

The mystic simply stands in place, letting his senses expand.

All around the women, pink and black electricity sparks through a wall of brilliant, white light that encompasses both of their bodies.

The black is noticeably dimmer than usual, being nearly grey in its possessor's unconsciousness.

As Fate watches, the colors move together, almost dancing around each other as they swirl in completely random patterns.

He frowns behind his helmet, realizing the display is decidedly  _not_ normal.

Auras do not mix as theirs do, under most normal circumstances.

With a start, he understands why something being  _off_ had never really occurred to him.

Their auras had been that way since he first began working together with them, though the colors merge and mix together more as he watches than they ever have before.

And, as he watches, he notices something.

The color of Jinx's aura has changed over time.

On first meeting the meta, he'd been started by the brilliant, bubblegum-like shade of pink to the energy that rolled around her like a small set of armor.

The same shade as her eyes.

Now, though, as he stares at her eyes and watches the flickering colors pass over them, he notices the two are no longer identical.

Darkness has crept into the pink of her aura, making it decidedly more scarlet.

Although not the stark color of Raven's eyes when she transforms, the color is now more similar to that shade than Jinx's own.

The realization further confuses the mystic, making him unsure of what it means.

"Can I, uh… help you, Doc?" Jinx asks in discomfort.

Fate jerks his head slightly, a touch embarrassed that he'd apparently been staring at the meta for long enough to be noticed.

"Apologies," he murmurs. "Has there been any change?"

"You were only gone for, like, fifteen minutes. She's still not wakin' up," the meta adds with a worried glance down at her lover.

"I would be surprised if she wakes up before tomorrow, honestly," he agrees. "Damage to the soul is not easily mended, and nearly impossible to entirely reverse. Taking damage in her astral realm as she did, following everything the two of you have been doing, could quite possibly have simply killed her."

Jinx grimaces, her hand unconsciously running along the empath's cheeks as she looks back up at him.

"How'd that whole thing go?" she asks with an upward jerk of her head.

"They'll be evacuating Gotham, and the League will be staying out of your way. I will be accompanying you to your fight, assuming Batman can discover where they'll be."

"Any chance you'll tell me who the Kryptonian'll be sending after us as soon as the dust clears?"

Fate again meets her eyes directly, noticing cold calculation hardening her expression.

She would fight anyone putting the two of them in danger without hesitation, he realizes while taking that expression in.

She seems to realize something, and the expression disappears as the blush resurfaces.

"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. I wouldn't want to put you in a bad position with the league. Forget I said anything. Not like it matters, anyway. If it ain't someone prepared to kill, they'll lose."

The absolute certainty in her voice doesn't surprise the mystic, though it does make him suddenly have an urge to re-consult the helmet's visions, just in case.

While he has no vision before him, he nonetheless can see the scenario before him.

The metahuman would make none of the attempts to de-escalate such a thing that her partner would.

"Constantine and Etrigan were on your side, as was I. In the end, Superman stated that as long as no civilians are injured, he'll leave you to the others coming for your heads. Partly due to the fact that he likely already considered your response a possibility," Fate admits.

"Seriously?" she asks, eyes widening.

"He didn't seem to be lying, either. There were others who didn't entirely agree-"

"Zatanna?" the meta quips.

"-among them Zatanna," he continues without missing a beat, "who may act regardless, but it would be action that isn't condoned by the League."

Jinx's tightened muscles relax just a bit, a sigh escaping her lips.

"If you, Etrigan, and Constantine are out of the equation, I'm not worried."

"Do not underestimate Zatanna. She has many years of practice, and her magic is powerful, if not quite on yours or Raven's level. There is a reason she's one of the League's chief magical consultants," he warns.

"Maybe, but unlike the bunny, you're the only one I'm, like, 98% certain could take both of us on our best day and still kick our asses," she responds flippantly.

"While your confidence in my power is interesting, I'd rather you didn't fight her, if it's all the same. Despite your differences, she is ultimately an agent of Order as well, albeit perhaps one who is a touch tunnel-visioned at times. And despite what you think, you might not win against her, if she put all of her training and education in the mystic arts into destroying you."

Something darkens in her expression, and she sends another look at her unconscious lover.

"I've seen Zatanna's magic, and I didn't make it this far because I took things at face value. Even Raven thinks I don't take her seriously… That's the point. I just like pressing the shiny buttons she leaves open that mess with her head, and it will throw her off down the road. Taking personal shit out of it, I don't actually want to fight her, either, because really, what do I gain if one of us ends up laid out and unconscious or dead?

"But?" he prompts, seeing the way her body coils a bit more around Raven, as though protecting her even more with her body.

"But she already planned to screw with Raven once, and like you said, she's on the side of Order to a fault. I'm pretty sure at least part of the reason she hates the both of us so much is just the kind of magic we use. I don't want to fight her, but if she decides to attack Raven, she'll have to get by me to do it, and I  _will_ defend myself."

Her eyes brighten slightly, the lights around the women moving even faster in response.

"She'll come at me, thinking I don't know what she can really do. She'll pull out the all the stops and count on it throwing me. Give her an openin'. And when she does, I'll be ready, and I'll take her down before her next blink."

Fate watches the magic tangling and weaving around the metahuman, seeming to draw on her anger.

As she becomes angrier, the pink begins turning slightly darker.

While he ponders her words, he realizes that she's likely correct about the way such a fight would go.

Her confidence had always been charming, before, and more than a little amusing.

Now, though, he realizes that she is far more dangerous a creature, regardless of the cause, than she had previously been.

It's much less amusing now that he's certain she can follow through on such threats.

"All the same, I'd recommend figuring out a way around that. If you do hurt, or worse kill, a League member, Superman will immediately call for a war on the both of you. If you manage to dodge all of us, you'll be on the run for the rest of your lives. And I don't need to remind you how long either of your natural lifespans are, do I?"

She stiffens as golden magic lightly coats the air around him, again giving him slightly more presence than he already possesses.

"I can't teleport, and I can't fly. If Zatanna comes at us, and Rae's…"

She chokes at whatever thought crosses her mind, the edges of her eyes gaining a noticeable shine to them that has nothing to do with magic.

"If Rae's out of it from kickin' her brothers' asses wholesale," she continues with a quivering voice, "there is no  _flight_ option there. It would probably be a very good idea for people to convince her, and any who would agree with her on this, to not try, then, instead of telling me to be a punching bag and putting more than just my own life in danger."

Her mind seems frozen on the possibility that torments her, and he watches as the colors steadily shift.

The darkness seems to become darker somehow.

After a moment, he realizes that the darkness is gaining its color by draining it from Jinx's telltale pink, leaving it steadily lighter.

While still not the color of her eyes, the color is significantly less dark and angry when the process is done.

Her entire body loses its tension, her eyes refusing to leave Raven's face as she continues running her hands along it.

Raven's lips curve into a very small smile, and her head turns slightly further into Jinx's touch.

The black color of her aura pulsates and slowly turns to its usual obsidian.

Jinx seems oblivious to the way her hands spark with nearly invisible bursts of pink light as they continue brushing against Raven's face.

As the action continues, Fate notices that the demonling's skin is steadily losing its pallor, just as quickly as the black energy darkens.

"How long has that phenomena been occurring?" he asks with a nod at the glow.

Jinx briefly raises a brow at him, before following his gaze.

Her eyes widen as she sees the light rising from her, seeming to feed into Raven's skin.

"Uh… I don't know…"

"Since we first became romantically involved?" a voice suggests.

Jinx jumps in response, and Fate himself fights a similar urge, as Raven's eyes slowly open.

Her gaze is unfocused, the small smile slowly turning to confusion.

"I am… not dead," she observes.

"You are conscious far earlier than expected," Fate corrects, staring at the demonling.

Raven reaches up slowly, entwining her hand with one of Jinx's.

At the touch, the colors around them brighten, almost painfully so, and her skin returns to its usual coloring.

Her eyes immediately clear, and with a huff of effort, she rises to sit.

Jinx gives her no room, pulling her back to rest fully against her front as soon as she's up.

Raven folds her arms over Jinx's letting her hold her stomach as pleasant sensations continue growing in her awakening body.

Her eyes move to their connected arms, staring at the swirling colors.

"We've had our energies mixing for a long time," she continues.

"How long would quantify  _long_ , exactly, were you to estimate?" the mystic challenges.

"When we first met again, I took her into Nevermore unprepared and without a filter like my mirror. It had an… adverse… effect. After that, we fought together, and it didn't take us an overly long time until we were mixing our magic for the best offense. Then we were, erm…  _closer_ , and have only become more so over time. By this point, we're practically symbiotic."

Jinx stares at her as though she's sprouted a second head while Fate frowns behind his helmet.

"You've continued to fight like you have, knowing about this?" Fate asks.

"How  _long_ have you known about this?" Jinx demands simultaneously.

Raven winces at the accusing tone in her lover's voice, feeling the tension around her.

"I didn't  _know_  about it. Not until the Dreaming, anyway, and I haven't exactly had the time to bring it up with everything else," she defends.

Jinx hears the wounded tone creeping into her voice, which joins her recent return from near death to make the meta feel very guilty.

She can't let the issue go that easily, though, regardless.

"But you just said it's been like that pretty much since we met. You're pretty observant, Rae."

"Our magic is inherently compatible, and when people are emotionally close, it's natural that their auras will tend to adapt to each other. They can sometimes even become similar under scrutiny, depending on how close they are and where their auras was a time that was probably taking in parts of the Titans' auras as well. But even that's a far way away from soul-level merging to the point that just being close will heal, What's happening isn't even usually feasible for any beings that aren't pure energy."

"You couldn't have possibly known," Fate agrees with a nod, his concerns quickly vanishing.

"So, I mean… what does it actually  _mean_?" Jinx asks, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"That your energies affect each other's auras. It is something in your favor," Fate supplies. "Etrigan brought up your experience falling through Hellfire up in the Watchtower. This is a much better alternative to the other possible theories I had."

"Hang on. What happened in the Watchtower?" Raven asks, already feeling tired again.

"Meeting to figure out if they wanted to ice us more than they wanted the universe to stay running. Looks like they like living. What  _about_ the Hellfire?" the meta asks without pause.

"Apparently, when you were in Stonehenge, you fell into waves of it when he was helping you destroy the circle. A fact both of you seemed to deem trivial."

Both women grimace at the chastisement, but Jinx's speeding heart distracts her quickly.

"Yeah, that happened. We figured it was just one of those 'looks like I can do that now' moments we tend to have. So, what? Are you sayin' the only reason I'm not long-dead is because I'm takin' in some of Rae's demon?"

"You'd be taking on my energy, not turning into a demon yourself," Raven corrects.

The empath's face scrunches in thought, a finger tapping her jaw as she gets lost in thought.

"Which makes sense, thinking about it. Being so close to demonic energy and magic all the time, and occasionally taking parts of it into your own aura… it would be akin to a very minor vaccination," she continues, theorizing to herself.

"So, what? You throw Hellfire at me, and I'll just walk through the stuff? Cause, not for nothin', but that could be hella' convenient, given who we're gearin' up to fight," Jinx says, her eyes alight at the potential.

"Even I will not simply  _walk through_  Hellfire. It still has mass, and velocity driving that mass. That said… in  _theory_ , and only in theory, because I do not make a habit of fighting demons skilled enough to wield such magic… I could feasibly only take the damage of impact."

"So… you still get burned. That's a little… disappointing considerin' what I was hopin' for," Jinx admits with a wince.

She squeaks in surprise when Raven's finger taps her forehead, the empath turning her head to give her a frown.

"Hellfire has no heat. No burning. That's not how it works. In theory, the effect that comes with it, the reaction of the souls making the flames up draining the surrounding world, would have no effect on me. If it's all the same, while I can't say your thought wouldn't be nice, I would prefer if you didn't get hit by Hellfire to test it out."

Jinx blushes at the sudden worry practically glowing in the empath's violet eyes.

"Just being in the vicinity of Hellfire can cause a great deal of health issues for humans, and even the majority of metahumans and mystics with stronger resistance. If you can avoid it, do so, Jinx," she continues.

"It was just a thought," the meta defends with hands raised in mock surrender.

"All the same, it is a legitimate concern," Fate interjects. "Your brothers are more versed with their demons than even you. They will undoubtedly be using everything at their disposal, including Hellfire."

"Good point. And don't even  _think_ you're gonna' tell me to sit this one out," Jinx warns, eyes suddenly narrowing.

Raven nods in acknowledgement, her face scrunching in thought.

She grows more agitated the longer she thinks, until her aura is visibly sparking from the tension.

"I will teach you," she finally mutters.

Jinx blinks in surprise, a mirrored reaction hidden behind Fate's helmet.

"Teach me… what?"

Raven presses lightly against Jinx, rising to her feet when the arms holding her loosen enough.

"Demons are the only species equipped to handle that magic," Fate admonishes. "It would burn her soul to cinders."

Jinx jumps to her feet, staring at her lover in shock.

"Whoa, you're gonna' teach me how to throw that shit? Thanks for the sentiment, hon, but I'll give that a pass. That  _can't_ be good for me."

Raven glares at both of them, her skin slightly paler than usual.

"Of course not! It would be suicidal to try it, and would go against the point."

She quickly jerks her head to the side, clearing her irritation away in an instant.

"However, it can't be ignored that if I do not kill them all in one strike, a very minimal possibility at best, they will likely be using it on us. There's no returning  _that_  fire, for you, Jinx."

"So what're you on about?" Jinx demands, ready to pull her hair out.

"As with all fires, if you can contain or destroy the fuel, the Hellfire is snuffed out."

Fate's eyes narrow on Raven, who refuses to meet the glare.

"That's  _very_ dangerous magic you're planning to teach her, Raven."

Jinx's stare moves between the two, her mind reeling as she tries to catch on to the hidden meaning she's missing.

"What? Like… I de-power the Hellfire? Like all those artifacts?"

"That would be the result, yes," Raven agrees, though her eyes remain glued to the ground.

Jinx's stomach tightens as she begins to figure the problem out.

"It's not just breakin' the shit like with the artifacts, is it?"

"Hellfire is made of cursed and damned souls. To destroy it takes magic that works on a soul-level," Fate explains. "Think of it like snuffing the oxygen from a house fire. And if Raven happens to be using her soul-self, her very essence, at the time-"

"I am stronger than Hellfire," Raven cuts in, meeting his eyes as she does.

"But you are, nonetheless, mostly made of your soul. You can live without your body, but not your essence. If you're using your magic at the same time she's destroying the fire, it will get inside you. And it will destroy you."

"I couldn't do it if I'd wanted to when fighting Wrath, and my brothers and I will all be the same. We have shells, defending our souls until our deaths. We are… tethered, protected. Hellfire is bare, and made of very weak souls."

"Which become stronger as they feed on the world around them," Fate corrects.

"But are nonetheless weak in and of themselves. The components of what I am and what Hellfire is are fundamentally different. Besides, even were that  _not_  the case, our auras are linked. It would do no more damage to me than it would Jinx, even in the event of something like that happened," she argues.

Fate meets her stare for a small eternity, while Jinx's mind works rapidly to process the new information.

"The point you're making might be valid," he reluctantly agrees. "However, it's still far more dangerous than even dealing with your brothers will be. That is  _dangerous_ magic, Raven.  _You_ shouldn't even know that kind of magic outside of theory."

"I know a lot of magical theory that you could say the same for. Actually,  _you_ taught me some of those," she challenges.

Jinx finishes processing, and her teeth clench in horror at the images running through her mind.

"No. No, not only no,  _fuck_ no! Raven, there is no way in Hell!" the meta screeches, her body seeming ready for a physical fight.

Raven turns to face the meta, her expression completely guarded.

"Both of you made the argument that they'll be wielding Hellfire. I won't lose you, Jinx, and I won't let them win. You either have to work with me to deal with that problem, or you will need to chew me out for an eternity after I've picked you up from looking after the children at the monastery after the dust has settled. I will  _not_ let this be a pyrrhic victory."

Jinx blinks, feeling another blush cross her cheeks.

"Uh…?"

Raven fully turns her attention to Jinx, seeming to entirely forget Fate's presence as she gets close to her.

"I will not lose you in the process of destroying the Sons of Trigon. It would be… I won't let it happen."

Jinx starts at the hint of moisture in the empath's eyes.

"I do not want to teach you this kind of magic, if I'm honest. It is not the kind of magic that's meant for mortals, myself included, to be able to wield. And maybe it will turn out to be overkill, and I would regret doing so… But I will not bring you with me if you can't reasonably defend yourself against everything they can throw at us."

"Hey! Now hold on just a second. I can handle myself-"

"I'm not saying you aren't," Raven interrupts. "Your magic is strong, as are you. But Hellfire is caustic to anything in this realm. It's not their magic, or really even their empathic abilities, that I have worries about your ability with. If you cannot wield Hellfire, you cannot redirect it, and you have only your acrobatics to avoid a potentially large-area attack. In short, you must be able to destroy it, or be willing to step back."

"Better plan. How about you take care of the defense, for once, and  _I'll_ kick their asses?"

Raven blinks in surprise, as does the forgotten mystic.

"You just said that you think I can take 'em in terms of their magic and empathy. And you can deal with Hellfire, if they use it. So we kick their asses, and you start takin' the defense if they start flingin' that shit around. How's  _that_ for a plan?" Jinx asks, more than a little pride shining in her grin.

"That… is actually not a bad plan," Raven muses, quickly getting over the shock. "As long as they do not separate us, that could actually work."

"I have my moments," the meta quips.

Unnoticed by either, Doctor Fate releases a silent but heavy sigh of relief, unknown tension relaxing.

He had not liked any part of where the conversation had been heading.

"That is a fine plan, I think," he supplies.

Both women jump, as though they really had forgotten his presence, much to his amusement.

"Now that that's settled, Batman mentioned that he would gain much from Raven's help, once you were both awake. Perhaps the two of you together can pinpoint exactly where your brothers will be going. He is a smart man, but the nuances of magic are a little beyond him, I'm afraid."

"Wow. Never thought I'd get to meet the Bat without bein' in cuffs," Jinx muses, her eyes slightly wider.

Raven smirks at her lover, a brow raised in question.

"If you'd like to live up to a dream-"

Jinx moves quickly, clamping a hand over the empath's mouth while her face turns bright scarlet.

"Thank you very much, Rae, but I'll give that thought a pass."

Raven laughs into her hand, before wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Very well. No time to waste, I suppose."

Her eyes move to Fate, and her expression immediately sobers, though her cheeks turn a light pink.

"Thank you. For a lot more than you know, you have my thanks. If…  _when_ we make it through this, I will make sure to begin repaying the massive amount of debts I owe you."

"Saving the universe will be considered a blank check," he responds with a shake of his head. "If and when you win, all imagined debts will be paid."

…..

 _Author's Notes_ :

I'm finding that I enjoy writing Jinx more as I get further into the story, and writing scenes with her is getting to be increasingly more fun. We're getting to the end, people, and will be shortly returning to the action.

As always, I look forward to your inputs and thoughts, and I'll see you all next time!


	55. Adjustment

# LIV. Adjustment

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

The women are encased in Raven's soul-self, and they quickly sink into the floor.

In the next moment, they're standing in a familiar room.

Jinx sighs in relief as Raven's aura washes over her, the energy feeling oddly pleasant after the Order magic had been grating on her mind.

Raven seems to agree, her entire body releasing tension neither had known was there.

Despite the strange sense of safety coursing through the meta, she finds herself surprised.

"This isn't the Batcave," she observes.

"I… would rather give myself a few moments to adjust. If it's alright with you," Raven says nervously.

"Well, shit, you've been falling your way through life since… since we last left here, pretty much. I ain't gonna' complain," Jinx quips.

She quickly pivots on the balls of her feet, putting herself at Raven's front.

The empath shivers as her chin is gently clasped, red eyes meeting pink.

"Before I let you get to it, though, I need to know. Are you okay? Everything about you seems…  _different_ , at least physically."

Raven frowns in contemplation, slowly cataloguing all parts of herself.

She immediately regrets doing so, as all of her new senses assault her at once.

Her muscles, as she'd suspected when first coming out of her coma, are much stronger than previously.

So much so that, as she twitches her hand, a ripple of pain launches up her entire arm.

Staring down at the hand in confusion, she frowns as she realizes that focusing on it suddenly makes the appendage considerably sharper to her sight, sending a stab of pain to her forehead.

She realizes as she stares down for a moment longer that her skin is no longer the grey color the past years have made her accustomed to.

Then, the pain becomes horrible, and with a wince, she closes her eyes.

With the orbs closed, she begins wondering at what caused the pain in her arm.

When she again flexes, the same thing happens, and she analyzes the sensation.

"You, uh, okay?"

With her eyes closed, Raven's hearing picks up, making the slightly high pitch of the meta's voice go from soothing to painful screeching directly into her brain.

At the same time, she picks up on a steady  _thump_ ing that reaches her.

It takes her only a moment to realize she's hearing her meta's heart, sped up in concern.

She bites back a whimper, and slows her breathing in the hopes of forcing her mind to calm down.

"At the moment, nothing is okay with my body," she groans. "This is not like accepting my own demon was."

Jinx blinks in surprise, the first part of the admission one she'd expected the empath would be too stubborn to give.

Realizing how much pain that indicates, she finds herself suddenly wishing she'd been the one to spot Trigon in the Dreaming so she could have punched him in the face.

Even if it likely would've ended up with her mind destroyed.

Jerking her head to clear the strain of thought, she brings her hand up to caress Raven's face.

Raven discovers that her newly strengthened sense of touch, at least, is not making everything worse.

"What can I do to help?" the meta murmurs, voice dripping in worry.

"Can you… speak a little more quietly?" Raven responds.

She feels her lover's hand stiffen, and immediately returns the gesture to soothe.

"It is not you. My senses are stronger. I need to adjust and, well-"

"Headache ain't going to help," Jinx supplies the grasping empath, her voice a bare whisper.

"Yes. Sorry. I'll work on that in a minute."

She feels Jinx's nod by way of the shifting in the air before her.

With her headache quickly subsiding, she again flexes her hand.

The pain resurfaces, but much less strongly.

"What's goin' on there?" Jinx asks when she notices the gesture.

"My body needs to adjust and compensate to new stimuli," Raven guesses. "Flexing seems to be doing damage, since I haven't gotten used to how strong the pull is now."

"Can I-"

"Only way to adjust for this is to keep going through it," Raven interrupts with another wince.

Jinx huffs in frustration, glaring at her girlfriend's closed eyes.

"Is there  _anything_  'sides being quiet I can do? I feel useless, here."

"You are not, I assure you."

"Can I… y'know… try to siphon some of that off into myself? That's got to be one of the perks of connected souls, right?"

"You can certainly try, but I would advise not," Raven responds around a stifled groan.

"I can take it," Jinx assures as she lets her eyes slip closed.

"Who knows what would happen? My senses are hurting me, and they're  _my_ senses. If you try it, you could end up doing serious damage."

Jinx stops herself, staring at her lover's closed expression.

As she watches, Raven continues flinching with each slow stretch of her limbs.

"But you're in a ton of pain," the meta complains. "An' I can help."

"Yes, but everything so far that we've done has been unconscious. Neither of us has ever actively tried for it. Until we test it out, it's very dangerous for the both of us to actively try something like that."

"Fine. No playing with our souls," Jinx huffs. "Damned masochist."

Despite the pain rolling through her, Raven feels herself grinning.

"Don't," Jinx warns sternly when she opens her mouth for a retort.

Chuckling, Raven shrugs and returns her focus to controlling her new muscles.

"I'm glad I decided to come here, first. I don't think being in a dark cave right now would be the best plan."

"Yeah, gotta' say, you'd be havin' a pretty hard time if the bat wanted to fight you and you couldn't make a fist right."

Among other things," the empathy agrees.

Slowly, Raven finds the pain subsiding, her body adjusting far less quickly to the new strength than she would like.

The banter with her fiancé is helpful, she finds, and they keep it up for what feels like hours, but in reality was likely only a handful of minutes.

She heaves a sigh of relief when the pain vanishes entirely, and grabs Jinx's hand.

A smirk forms when she actually  _hears_ the meta's heart speed up at the contact.

At the same time, she's assailed with a strangely sweet smell.

"You… gonna' open your eyes anytime soon?" Jinx murmurs.

Raven picks up on the nervousness in her lover's voice, and suddenly dislikes the smell a great deal.

Her eyes are pure lenses of red when they open.

The world is thrown into harsh, painful contrast, drawing a groan of what was almost agony from the empath.

Minor details that even her previously excellent vision had missed are now thrown into harsh clarity.

Everything has a faint glow around them, no matter where she looks in the room.

When she looks at Jinx, she fights back a reaction at the supernova of harsh, pink light that meets her gaze.

Even through the aura, though, she can see the reflections of her own hellish, red eyes in Jinx's own gaze, and is startled by the realization.

"My eyes…"

She closes them once more, and concentrates hard.

The energy flowing through her tightens under her control, and she feels the demonic aspect of herself pulling away from the surface as she has many times before.

The world is considerably duller the next time she opens her eyes.

While still far more detailed than her previous vision had been, she no longer feels as though her eyes are going to explode along with her brain.

Her skin, she realizes, is also still slightly reddish in color.

She again looks into Jinx's eyes, though, only to find herself still staring at red slits reflected back at her.

"I don't think that's goin' away, hon," Jinx murmurs.

She ponders it for a moment.

While she'd never been perfectly happy with her physical traits, she had never wished to look different, either.

Her skin, the thing about her that readily told everyone who looked that she wasn't a normal human, is now nearly pink enough to be missed by all who are unobservant.

She laughs at the idea that all it took to fit in was to become far more demon than human.

Her previously violet eyes had been one of the things that she  _had_ actually liked, though she suspects at least part of that was Jinx's doing.

"Damnit, I liked my eyes," Raven complains aloud around a sigh.

Jinx's lip curls slightly on one side, her other hand joining its pair on Raven's face.

"So did I. It's not the end of the world, though."

A brow rises in response, making Jinx's full Cheshire cat smile appear.

"If that was a joke, it was poorly done," the empath groans.

Jinx laughs, then, the sound like a balm to her mind.

"Oh, c'mon, can't blame a girl for tryin'."

"You can talk a bit louder. And it is… somewhat appreciated, I suppose," Raven sighs, though she feels her own lips curling upward.

Jinx's hands tighten on her, and Raven meets the meta's gaze.

"So what's goin' on in there? Freaking out? Wondering about all the ways you can kick even more ass now? Thinkin' about how to take over the world?"

Raven's eyes narrow at the last part, earning an apologetic smile and a heavy blush immediately from the meta.

"Sorry. That  _was_ a shitty joke. Other than the pain, how're you doin'? Do you want me to run and grab some Thanagarian booze for you?"

Raven smiles at the joke, her body releasing even more tension.

She realizes that normalcy is very good, for dealing with a change on this scale.

"It did not work so well on me before, and now my metabolism is likely faster. And I would prefer you not destroy our new house on accident, if it's all the same."

"It was  _one_ time," Jinx bemoans.

"All the same," the empath muses. "But other than the discomfort in my own skin at the moment, I seem to be otherwise okay. Although I will definitely need to work over the next few days to grow quickly accustomed to my father's… to  _my_ abilities."

"So it wasn't just a power boost?"

"His senses were nearly omnipresent. If what just the past minute has suggested is any indication, I will need to learn how to handle that, or my mind may end up broken."

"Yeah, definitely not good," Jinx agrees.

Raven ponders how dangerous she truly is in that moment.

Despite the utter lack of finesse with her new muscles, she can nonetheless feel the power now sitting in wait for her to use.

She truly did take in what remained of Trigon.

Analyzing the power inside of her, she realizes how terrifying that prospect truly is, for the first time.

Shivers run through her as she realizes that if something ever happened to her mind, if some force took control of her body and its powers, the world would not even have a new Trigon on their hands.

They would have something far, far worse, if the supposed force had a way of using her full potential.

She jerks her head, forcing the thought away.

Jinx watches her fiancé's inner debate, growing increasingly more worried with the shift in Raven's expression.

"Not good is possibly the biggest understatement for the situation," the empath finally responds.

"Right… Well, uh… We'll work on that, then. Together.  _After_ we get back from Wayne Manor."

Raven's eyes lift from the floor, then, and a smirk again curves her lips.

"A bit eager."

"Hey! How many millionaires do  _you_ know? I might be out of the whole thief game but…  _c'mon_. That's like a candy store up there. Besides that, the guy's a freaking legend," Jinx defends with a powerful blush.

"Uh-huh. You know, I'm sure I could buy you a new pair of handcuffs, if you still want-"

"And  _I'm_ insatiable? It was just a joke," the meta groans, much to Raven's amusement.

"You are, and it was an interesting idea."

Raven's face scrunches suddenly, and she tightens her hold on Jinx's hand.

"Though, then again, I think I'd rather I be the only one cuffing you."

"How sweet," Jinx snarks.

Raven smiles, the normalcy of the discussion calming her mind significantly.

"I live to grant your wishes," she returns.

"Oh, great genie, I wish we could move on, please," the meta responds immediately, though with a smirk of her own.

"To the cave, then?"

"Only if you think you'll be okay heading there now."

Jinx's eyes lose their mirth, and she returns to scrutinizing Raven in worry.

Raven squeezes the meta's hand, her smile softening.

"I think I'll be okay. As long as I've got you, I can likely ground myself."

Jinx's blush turns almost neon, and she sputters a noncommittal response.

Raven steps closer, her arms wrapping around Jinx's waist as the meta's own close around her neck.

"All the same, I want you to be careful, Jinx."

"I'm  _always_ careful."

Raven shakes her head, a sudden somberness to her expression.

"Batman has called for us to come, immediately following a meeting discussing if we're dangerous. It is… a little suspicious."

Jinx rolls her eyes at that.

"Well, duh. For all we know, he could agree with Zatanna and have something waitin' for us. Geez, give me  _some_ credit!" she huffs.

The statement settles a very disturbing thought into the back of Raven's mind, though she refuses to acknowledge it.

"So we go in, an' if he tries anythin', I'll bring his whole house down."

Raven gets the distinct impression that Jinx's flippant attitude is purely for show.

There is a hard edge to the meta's expression that few have walked away from seeing.

Even as prepared for violence as Jinx appears to be, Raven still feels that they're going to be facing something distinctly  _unpleasant_ in the Batcave.

With a nod shared between the two, soul-self wraps around them.

As they rise from a rocky floor, she only has time to think of how much she  _hates_ being right before the world goes white…  
...

 _Author's Notes_ :

A bit on the shorter side this week, so apologies. I wanted to play with the idea of Raven absorbing Trigon for a bit. It would make sense that it would be significantly different to when she took her own demon side in, since Trigon wasn't a natural part of her physiology.

As always, I hope you all enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing! Be sure to let me know, one way or the other, and I'll see you all next time!


	56. Misstep

# LV. Misstep

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Raven falls to her knees, an incredible pain flooding her every synapse.

Painful, white light blinds her, and she feels her mouth falling open in a silent scream.

Her body arcs into a tight bow as she's given a feeling not unlike what she imagines being struck by lightning would be like.

The light suddenly shuts off, leaving her immobile but, at the very least, able to see.

And the sight that meets her causes her blood to turn cold.

A massive circle of iron, either rusted or painted red, surrounds her on all sides.

As she stares at the lines, she notices a distinctive darkness slipping along the ground like spilled water.

The darkness is being sucked into the iron, making the bright red glow around her ever brighter with every bit of the energy it takes.

In her agonized mind, it takes her a few moments to realize the energy is hers, the draining darkness leaving her steadily more drained.

Through the pain-induced haze flooding her vision, she slowly begins to pick up distinct shapes.

With a start, she recognizes a plethora of magical symbols from various systems, cultures, and even planets.

Her pain doesn't prevent her from recognizing what's happening for long.

Despite understanding the magical circle that's suppressing her energy, she can do nothing to force her body back to a stand, much less get herself out of the glowing orb.

If it were any creature not made of magic, as she is, it would likely only be mildly uncomfortable, even if inconvenienced by it keeping them from throwing magic around.

She briefly considers the possibility that Batman did, in fact, lure her into a track.

The idea that he would be that stupid, however, is hard for her to accept, even in her state.

She's brought from her musings when incredible anger reaches her senses.

Only part of the emotion is her own, while a great deal comes from her side.

Jinx had watched Raven fall almost immediately, the cavern around them being flooded with white light.

When she'd seen the circle around them growing bright, and Raven's aura together, she'd put two and two together.

Her composure is virtually nonexistent as she watches the empath's energy, her actual essence, being drained out of her.

Magic rushes through the air, and Raven feels her hair lifting on the current of power.

Clearly the barrier didn't apply to magicians who also happened to be terrakinetics.

" _ **Tōṛanā**_!" a voice booms, the cave echoing the sound to almost be godlike.

An echoing  _crack_  sounds, and rock explodes around the fallen empath.

Jinx points at the ground, a powerful glow exploding from beneath her to the edges of the circle.

Ready as she'd been for a trap, seeing Raven in even more pain had set something off inside of her.

As Raven watches, fissures rush out in a web from the meta's feet.

Iron bends and snaps under the sudden pressure, jagged debris and sparks flying through the air and into the surrounding darkness.

Once the circle is broken, the magic dissolves, and she falls limp and gasping to the ground.

Jinx's power continues flowing, and Raven forces her gaze upward.

A corona of pink flows around Jinx's body, just as brightly as it had been not minutes previously.

Except the darkness of the cave tells Raven that her vision is not at that level, at the moment, meaning it comes from her immense pull on her magic.

Jinx's long hair fans out around her in the air, and her hands are steadily dripping sparks of pink magic.

Matching her own eyes, Jinx's orbs stares ahead through pure lenses of color, though the shade is considerably darker than their usual pink.

Despite her lack of pupils, Raven can sense that Jinx is looking at something, and follows her gaze.

Standing not five steps away from them, Zatanna is nearly hidden in the shadows of the cave.

"You have ten fucking seconds to explain this, or things are going to get  _real_ ugly," Jinx warns.

Raven starts, her lover's voice containing an animalistic quality she's not heard before from her.

"You'll get crushed, too, if you pull this whole cave down," Zatanna responds calmly.

"Missed the part where I just broke the rock your iron circle's on? Don't put any bets on that," the meta snarls.

Raven pushes herself to her feet, finding her strength already almost returned.

Her hand lands on Jinx's shoulder, and a whoosh of air escapes her.

Something seems to spark between them with the touch, a painful warmth spreading through Raven's palm.

Even as the aura lightens to its former brightness, following suit with Jinx's eyes, she doesn't drop her building power.

With her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Raven notices a glint of red hanging around the sorceress's neck.

"Do not attack just yet, Jinx," Raven demands.

She feels the meta's eyes turn to her with incredulity, though she still refuses to let go of the magic.

Raven focuses on Zatanna, her eyes burning bright in the darkness.

"What is the purpose of this circle?"

"It wasn't meant for you," a different voice responds.

Jinx's stare moves to the shadows, finding the outline of Batman against a cavern wall.

"It dropped her as soon as we touched down, and that sure as hell ain't a coincidence."

Raven doesn't break from her staring contest with the sorceress, despite her own startle at the caped hero's sudden appearance.

"It keeps people from teleporting into my home. Or it  _did_ , anyway. I  _don't_ like announced guests, invited or not," Batman states.

"Unless they're a demon. Then it just drains their life force."

Zatanna's eyes narrow in response to the accusation.

"Most of us have to worry about them, so I added in extra protections when I made the circle, almost a year ago. Yeah, it's stronger with demons, because demons are stronger, and it just gets stronger with the more energy spent on struggling. As soon as he told me you were going to be coming, I headed over to open a doorway. It's not my fault I was only halfway through when you popped in," she argues.

"Actually, now that I look at it, this circle looks  _remarkably_ like the one you had inscribed on Richard's machine," Raven continues as though she hadn't heard a thing.

She turns in a slow circle, taking in the symbols surrounding her.

"Though I do grant you, it  _does_  seem intended for defense."

She frowns in thought, staring at the circle in confusion.

"It's odd, though. Something like this should have a deterrent built in, like Fate's tower. I should have felt it when I was coming in, and I would gladly have gone to the driveway, instead. Yet I didn't feel a thing."

The implication sits heavy on the air, and Jinx notices the way Zatanna tenses.

Frowning, the meta casts her gaze around in search of the odd symbol out that would've screwed it up.

She finds what she's looking for literally right under her nose.

Taking a small step back, she looks down at the red lines she'd been standing on.

Her heart immediately speeds up as she recognizes what she's looking at.

For a moment, she considers how lucky Zatanna is, considering if she hadn't finally let go of her power, she probably would have hexed her right then.

She looks up from the circle to find Zatanna staring into her eyes, seeming to plead with her expression.

While the meta more than understands her fear, she doesn't even consider hiding her discovery from Raven.

Even if the demonling didn't turn to face her and spot their staring match in that moment, she isn't sure she would've even if she could've.

"What error did she make? You know, Zatanna, this kind of spell can be  _very_ dangerous if not written out right. You could do a lot of terrible things on accident when teleportation's involved."

Her tone is almost scholarly, sounding like so many conversations she'd held with Jinx when teaching her the nuances of more complicated magic.

Jinx gulps and reluctantly taps her foot to the segment of stone in front of her.

Raven watches Zatanna's eyes follow the movement, and a cold sweat breaks out on the sorceress's skin.

An incredibly sweet fragrance floods the air, making Raven almost gag.

It is a different smell than the nervous concern Jinx had produced not minutes earlier.

She focuses her senses and finds, much to her surprise, that both Zatanna and Jinx are producing the smell, though the odor is far stronger from Zatanna's direction.

It is incredibly enticing to her new senses, and the realization worries her greatly.

She doesn't want to know what would cause such fear in both women, but she also cannot stop herself from looking.

Her eyes fall to where Jinx is indicating, and her blood turns cold.

Her name had been added to the circle's magic, written in Enochian symbols.

It was clearly done with a lot of guessing involved, as it was missing a decent amount of information, but it was closer to the true name attached to her soul than Raven was comfortable with.

As she stares at the symbols, she realizes why she hadn't felt anything when teleporting.

Her name had been partially ascribed to the magic, essentially making her part of the circle itself.

It is why she felt nothing when entering, as she is desensitized since long ago to the feel of her own magic.

Worse, it's why they landed directly in the circle.

The markings were laid as a trap, meant to block and trap all intruders, but especiallyher, specifically.

Without Jinx, it likely could have completely drained her, leaving nothing but a hollowed body behind.

She realizes that, had the symbols been correct, had the magic been even more specific on targeting her, she would not have been standing there now.

"Like I said, a year ago," Zatanna defends nervously.

Batman looks between the women, not sure what the significance of the symbols under Jinx's foot is.

"This is a pretty good guess, Zatanna," Raven muses.

Her voice is dangerously calm, and even Jinx seems ready to back away from the underlying threat.

Suddenly, darkness blossoms into existence around Raven's tightly clenched fist.

With wide eyes, Jinx moves into a series of backward somersaults.

As soon as the meta's out of her path, the empath brings her fist down.

For a very brief moment, red markings flash into existence on Raven's skin, making her entire body glow.

They are gone in the next blink, but nobody had missed their presence.

And then, dust and rock explodes upward in a dark cloud.

Zatanna shields her face from the choking debris, though she's very reluctant to take her eyes off Raven.

When the cloud clears, they find Raven standing in the center of a massive indentation in the rock.

Iron is bent and warped along the broken ground, the empath's soul-self seeming to have sheared completely through the magic-absorbent metal.

"A  _very_ close guess, actually," the empath continues as though nothing had happened.

There's a startling growl to Raven's voice now as she speaks, and Zatanna finds herself taking a few instinctive steps back.

Raven's eyes glow sinisterly in the darkness, seeming to cast shadows on the rest of her face.

Batman, Zatanna, and Jinx all stare at the massive crater where the magic circle had previously been.

Raven, too, stares at her work.

She'd been aiming to simply break the small area with her almost-name on it, and had instead decimated the two meter swath of rock that the magical circle had covered.

She fights down a gasp as she realizes that the destruction ends practically underneath Jinx's feet where she'd landed.

The realization disturbs her, but she forces away all signs of it as she turns to her full attention back to Zatanna.

"Raven-"

"You should shut up, bunny," Jinx warns in a distressingly shaky voice.

She doesn't  _think_ Raven is going to outright kill Zatanna for the magic she'd worked into her protective circle, but even without empathic abilities, she could feel the rage boiling under the surface.

"Look, it was a year ago. I would never exploit-"

"You  _absolutely_  won't," Raven growls.

Zatanna visibly shivers, putting more distance between herself and the demon.

"It's been almost a year since you did that guesswork. I'm going to assume, likely safely, that you've gotten it fully since then. Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Zatanna Zatarra. There is exactly  _one_  person I have ever trusted with my true name. That you've learned it by some means on your own is impressive, but do  _not_ make the mistake of thinking to use it."

Her eyes brighten suddenly, and Zatanna finds herself staring into almost literal fire as the colors swirl around.

" _Ever_. Because you will have exactly one chance, and I  _swear to you on the River Styx_  that it  _will_  end in a way that will guarantee no second attempt."

The air suddenly becomes heavy, and the other magicians stare in shock at Raven.

Jinx had certainly heard her lover form enough geasa in their time together that the sensation was familiar.

The sensation is different, though, when made with such ugly intentions.

Zatanna, wraps her arms around her stomach as though to stay the feeling clawing through her body.

It leaves her feeling drained, and she swears then and there to forget the symbols, even if she had to use magic to do it.

Even Raven feels the difference as she resists shuddering.

The geasa she'd made before had always been accompanied with a slight chill, as though some deity was jotting her name down on a list for later reference.

This time, she feels a burning heat pulse through her entire body, as though a very small fire has been lit inside her organs.

It disappears quickly enough, but in its wake, Raven finds herself fighting hard to keep from violently shaking.

"I won't use it," Zatanna promises, sounding nearly in tears.

"I know."

Zatanna shivers at the absolute certainty in Raven's tone, and even Jinx resists doing the same.

"Is there a  _reason_ you started a small earthquake under my house?" Batman demands.

"Leave it alone, rich boy," Jinx warns.

Her boots crunch noisily on the rocks as she approaches Raven's side.

Raven's body almost immediately relaxes as soon as the meta's hand is holding hers.

"You said I could help find where they'll be?" she asks.

Jinx relaxes, then, as well, when she hears the usual smoky tone in her lover's voice.

Batman stares at her for another moment, frowning when he realizes he can't read anything in the lenses of red where her eyes used to be.

"There are a  _lot_ of tunnels beneath Gotham, and even using faster means of transportation, I can't possibly get through them all in the time we have. I also don't have any idea what I'd be looking for."

"It's the gate to Hell," Zatanna chimes in. "Something like that's got to be massive, and pouring magic out like crazy."

"The Hellmouth's the entrance to Hell. It's not an actual place, otherwise we'd've been on it the second we found out that's where they were goin'," Jinx corrects.

"But the part about the magic is true," Raven adds. "Someplace where you could stabilize that portal would have to be incredibly powerful to begin with. The world would be…  _wrong_ … around a place like that."

"To someone who can sense magic," Batman cuts in. "Hence why you're here. I was going to suggest you two and Zatanna work together and pool your senses together to find the place."

His eyes narrow on Raven, then, and she forces herself to not react to the expression.

"But I think it'd be safer to have you go separate routes, if that was any indication. The three of you fighting could collapse the whole cave system."

"They can't actually be that unstable. Gotham'd be a pile of rubble long before now if they were," Jinx retorts.

Frowning, Batman stalked towards the crater Raven had created and gestured downward.

"Both of you just shattered solid iron and stone, in a few seconds."

"Unless the Sons of Trigon are waiting for us in those tunnels, we'll be fine."

"How do you know they aren't?" the hero challenges.

Jinx feels a cold sweat break out at the thought, but Raven merely shrugs.

"If they're waiting for us, that means they've recovered faster than Death told us they would, and have managed to escape the army chasing after them. In other words, if that's true, then the preparation will be pointless, and we'll fight them as we are, or lose."

"That's pretty pessimistic," Zatanna nervously muses.

"Nah, she's right. If they're there, we'd be way past too late already. Plus, Rae'd've figuratively sniffed them out the second we got here. After she was able to stand up again."

"And without them lying in wait, I will not erroneously break walls apart," Raven finishes.

Zatanna points at the tunnel behind them, her hair rising in wild waves around her.

" _Etacidni eht htap wcihw ew kees_!"

A ball of blue light ignites in the air, bright energy seeming to bubble beneath the surface.

The orb floats for several seconds before Zatanna glares at it.

"It's not going to be that easy," Jinx sighs.

Raven's eyes pulse with light, and she points her index finger at the sphere.

A small spark of darkness launches into the orb, and the entire thing becomes noticeably darker.

Zatanna turns to question the action, when suddenly a solid spike of blue rises from the sphere's body.

The women watch as it slowly spins and points behind Zatanna.

"When I said the world would be wrong, I meant it would be overflowing with magic. The area itself would be stable, but only because the rest of the world becomes chaotic from grounding the energy. Your energy would be… unsuited, on its own, to draw us to such a place."

"Why not just do it yourself, then?" the sorceress demands with a glare.

"Jinx and I both probably could," the empath replies with a shrug. "But that kind of spell would likely give false positives. There can't be many places in these tunnels that have both forms of magical energy, however."

"Are you going to start the fight this time, or do you want to find the damn hotspot and get this done with?" Jinx adds with a glare.

Zatanna seems as though she has a retort for a moment, before she silently closes her gaping mouth.

Without another word, the women begin making their way through the tunnels…

…...

 _Author's Notes_ :

Tōṛanā- Hindi: "snap"

Enochian is the mystical language used by angels.

River Styx- A lot of people probably know this tidbit. The Styx is the river of hatred in the Greek Underworld. It's also a the daughter of two Titans in that pantheon, who helped overthrow the Titans in Zeus's war. Even the Greek gods don't dare break an oath sworn on her name.

Geasa- Plural of the Gaelig term "geas"

I rewrote this chapter a surprising number of times before finally deciding on the way it went. I think it turned out well, but as always, I'm interested in hearing what you readers think, positive or negative. I'll see you all next time!


	57. Perspective

# LVI. Perspective

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Footsteps echo noisily around the women as they make their way through the tunnels.

Zatanna's entire body is tense from having her back to Raven.

Given that it's her spell leading them, though, she hadn't had much choice in taking the lead.

Raven is likewise tense, though it's only partly due to the waves of emotion rushing against her mental barrier.

She feels Jinx's eyes on her as she studies her hand, sparks of black light setting off into the air with her every flex.

The longer they walk silently along, the more time she finds to worry over her utter lack of control over her power.

Finesse is a requirement, to not break the world around her at every turn, and her change seems to have affected that quality as much as her muscle control.

Zatanna feels the energy across her awareness, as well.

She doubts Raven would stab her in the back, much as she doesn't like her, but the sensation makes her nervous nonetheless.

"So what's with the red eyes?"

The sorceress blinks in surprise, the question having escaped her seemingly without any active will of her own.

She feels them both stare at her, likely with the same surprise on their expressions, but refuses to turn or slow down to check.

The silence becomes even more awkward for several moments before the couple's shared stare ends with mutual shrugs.

"My father's influence, most likely," the empath answers, eyeing the sorceress suspiciously.

"So what Fate said was true, then? You killed him for real this time?"

"I did. Or rather, I assimilated him so that he no longer exists. Killing him would be far less… permanent."

"I'll bet. So the new eyes are stuck like that?"

Raven is surprised by the genuine curiosity in Zatanna's voice, though it serves to only strengthen her suspicion.

"I suspect so. My body has always had two forms, though I've worked long to suppress it and appear more than only half human. Absorbing his powers means that I have shifted my aura to better match his energy, and therefore not kill me when I took everything he had."

Zatanna visibly shudders at the completely emotionless way that the empath talks about destroying an immortal.

She knows further conversation is pushing her luck, and yet finds that her fear spurs her mouth to ignore her survival instinct.

"Shame. Glow in the dark eyes probably aren't great for stealth."

Raven's eyes narrow in both surprise and annoyance by the magician's tactless statement.

Jinx steps closer to Raven, only a little out of worry for Zatanna's potential strangulation.

Given what the demonling had done to solid rock, flesh probably wouldn't be a pretty sight.

"Ah, coulda' been worse," she retorts flippantly. "Least you don't hafta' buy a new knife or anything."

Her eyes narrow, then, and her lips curve as her expression changes for Raven's eyes only.

"Besides, they aren't that bad. Long as you aren't pissed, I'll bet they'll get less bright."

"Etrigan's never do," Raven argues, unable to hide her bitterness.

"What's this about a knife?" Zatanna asks nervously at the same time.

"And when have you  _ever_ seen Etrigan when he  _wasn't_ pissed?" the meta challenges with a grin.

"Point," Raven agrees with a nod. "And she's referring to my nails, I believe."

Zatanna's head turns, a brow raised at the shrugging empath.

Jinx acts on the opening, hoping to keep them distracted for as long as possible.

She doesn't know what's broken in the sorceress's head, but she  _really_ doesn't care if it means a way to keep her blood from covering the stone walls.

"Best as we can figure, Rae's fingernails are basically steel. When she first changed, she had to use a knife to trim 'em. They kept comin' back whenever she completely shifted to the other form, and pretty soon, her nails started winning against the knife."

"You have  _claws_?" Zatanna gasps.

Raven raises her hand to her inspection once more, feeling a blush creep across her cheeks.

"Not usually. I try to avoid it. They're inconvenient and potentially dangerous. Unfortunately, they seem to get stronger the more I cut them."

Jinx blushes, then, as well, telling Zatanna more than she ever wanted to know about what was inconvenienced.

"On the plus side, they don't grow like normal nails, either, so she only has to cut them when she shifts," the meta rushes to say in the hopes of distracting the sorceress.

Zatanna nods, her expression warped in deep, apparently unpleasant thought that neither woman can guess at.

They continue on for a few more minutes in silence.

When they get deeper into the earth, and the air grows colder, Zatanna decides distracting herself from the growing chill might be worth her potential injuries.

"So realistically, what're your chances?"

Raven freezes mid-step, her eyes snapping to the back of the sorceress's head.

"Fate said that you could've fried your brain beating Wrath. That's only one. There'll be five more, right?" Zatanna continues nervously.

"I acted rashly with Wrath, and I destroyed him myself. It's even possible that, at the time, Trigon called his essence in the hopes of unbalancing me and giving him a better chance for whatever he had planned. It will be different now that I know the risks and am not going to be stubborn about insisting I deal with them myself," Raven explains warily.

"That doesn't answer the question. It's been bugging me since Fate told us about it. What're the actual chances that you both walk out of this all alive?"

The couple exchanges a brief look, the question an uncomfortable one for both of them.

Jinx lightly squeezes the empath's hand, offering her a small smile.

"Don't worry about us, bunny. We're made of stern stuff."

Zatanna's shoulders hunch, and she briefly turns to face the unmoving pair.

"Why do you call me that?" she demands. "Do I  _look_ like some airhead to you?"

The meta stares for a silent moment, surprised by the anger in her voice as she feels Raven's warning stare on her.

"I think you've got the wrong mindset. Though what you're thinking is probably more personally insulting, so I probably should've gone that route. If we're all being frank here, I don't like you."

"Gee, I'd never picked up on that," Zatanna snarks with a glare.

"To the Justice League, you're basically a magician's rabbit. They pull you out when they need you, you serve as a lynchpin for any case where they've got to deal with magic like those rabbits do for a cheap magician's act, and then you get put away until you're needed again. How you relate to how that entire organization is run pisses me off."

Zatanna blinks in surprise, staring back into hard, pink orbs.

Raven notices the tension in the sorceress's hands, her own eyes narrowing to red slits.

"Think very carefully over your next actions. We have more important things to deal with right now."

"Screw that," Zatanna growls, much to the empath's surprise.

Something shifts inside Zatanna, and she decides in that moment that she's through playing nice, as much as she could say she had been before.

"I'm tired to this. If you're both going to die in a few days anyways, then I'm going to air some things. I'm getting this off my chest, and I'm going to do it while I'm sure you won't kill me, because you're not that stupid, and it would add a lot of time you don't have to this trek through Gotham's armpit."

"Get it over with, then," Raven sighs with a circular motion of her hand.

"Back there when you broke my circle, you sure as hell weren't intending to do enough damage to almost collapse the tunnel on us all. Meaning you weren't in control. If I've learned one thing about you, Raven, it's that without control, you're more dangerous than any random monster or villain to the world around you. I can only assume that it's because you got a serious power boost from taking Trigon out for good."

"I'm a fast learner. I will be ready for the Sons of Trigon," Raven assures with a shrug.

"Fine. Say you  _do_ somehow learn to control it all again in a few days and go head-to-head with five demons. Say you both come out of it all as the winners. Great, you saved the universe. There are a lot of people who'll be coming for the both of you as soon as the dust's settled. What's stopping you from deciding that you two are more important than however many lives get thrown into apprehending you, from both sides, and making this whole thing moot by going Trigon version two-point-oh on the universe?"

"I have countermeasures in place," Raven counters. "I've considered that possibility. If it happens, I will die, and that will be the end of that."

"If your girlfriend can pull the trigger. Somehow, I'm not buyin' that she will."

Jinx's eyes narrow, but her retort is cut off by Zatanna's continuing tirade.

Not that she would be able to argue the point, she considers with a grimace, given her unwillingness to do anything even when it was entirely possible Trigon had taken over Raven's body.

"I've never understood you, Raven. It's the biggest part of why I've never trusted you. At least with Etrigan, his motivations are clear. He'll help or use anyone and anything, as long as it gives him the chance to kill Le Fey. But you? You're born fully demon, for a long while thought you'd killed the reason you were on our side, and I don't buy the theories explaining your actions. I just don't get you, and I sure as hell can't trust you with the kind of power you can throw around."

Raven's eyes widen in surprise, the admission one she hadn't expected to ever hear from the sorceress.

Jinx continues standing silently at Raven's side, curious where the conversation will go.

"You dealt with those first artifacts by sneaking around behind your supposed friends' backs, doing who knew what with all the power that wasn't there with the ones you  _did_ return. We'd been getting all kinds of reports of a demon running loose stealing things and scaring the shit out of people, whether they were villains or not. Richard and I both got justifiably suspicious, and started putting a plan in place to deal with you, only to be used in the event that you might someday go villain. You found out, and immediately destroyed it."

Raven takes a threatening step forward, but is further surprised when the movement is matched by Zatanna.

"No. I'm not done! You've been harping on me about it. You've held a grudge for a whole damn year. But you know what? I stand by my decision. Yes, between my own issues and Wrath's influence, it was made worse. The plan was screwed up and needlessly cruel. But you know what? If you'd decided to just confront Richard and I about it, we probably could've hashed things out. Koriand'r wouldn't have been hurt, the Titans wouldn't have lost their faith in their leader, and we would've had a trap all ready and waiting for your brothers now, instead of hoping that you both don't get killed in a five-on-two fight at Hell's doorway."

The cavern suddenly drops several degrees, but Zatanna remains undeterred, her anger completely overriding her fear from moments ago.

"I had protection against you to keep a secondary base for the Justice League set up. It proved just now that our trap would have worked on your brothers, too. You and your girlfriend just destroyed it and made a crater where there was solid iron and rock before, without a second of hesitation or thinking of ways to use it to our advantage."

"I was a little caught up having my life drained out of me to worry about it," Raven hisses.

"Yeah, I know. I get it. I wasn't fast enough in disarming it. When Jinx broke through and stopped its power. Which was well before you decided to destroy the whole thing, intentionally or not. With her terrakinesis, we probably could've salvaged the whole thing and simply rewritten the spell to affect them instead. But no, you decimated it because you were angry."

Zatanna storms towards the pair, her eyes glowing with her emotions.

"You got chased by your brother, and you didn't even think twice before grabbing a magical weapon that's caused people to go insane for centuries and started swinging it around like you were born to use it, never mind the incredible amounts of damage you could've caused.  _Did_ cause, actually. Just you and one of your brothers was enough to wreck a huge chunk of downtown Jump."

Zatanna's eyes move to encompass Jinx, as well, then, setting the meta on edge.

"Not to mention that the both of you destroyed  _Stonehenge,_ a structure that's stood absorbing magic for centuries. You killed beings that've been around since Pangaea broke apart and Atlantis sank, and didn't even bat an eye because they were all actions that you could justify. Frankly, I can't disagree with all of it, without the benefit of hindsight. And the cherry on top was that you followed up by forming a geas with Morgana Le Fey, not giving a damn about what she can do in the future using that."

Zatanna looms over Raven, glowing blue eyes meeting solid red without any hesitation.

"For as smart as you both are, you're impulsive as hell, and with your abilities, that's a terrible combination! Given that the consequences of what _you_ do tend to be an accidental oversight, with the power you throw around, you are, despite the different ideologies, very similar in your actions to what Trigon tended to do, only at least  _he_ caused chaos and mayhem intentionally."

Jinx's heart jumps to her throat as Raven flashes into motion.

The air screeches as the empath's fist lashes out at Zatanna, stone cracking under the air pressure her swing drags with it.

Her fist stops just short of painting the rocks with Zatanna's head.

An ugly expression twists the empath's face as her muscles protest from the horrible strain of stopping her action.

The wind pushes past her stopped fist and sends the sorceress's hair into a flurry around her.

An ominous whistle sounds through the cavern, and the meta briefly notices rocks cascading down from the walls around them.

Jinx notices that Zatanna's entire body is shaking, but from the cold way she stares at Raven's stopped fist, she'd never have been able to tell otherwise.

"Y-you know that every single thing I just said is true."

If not for how stupid goading Raven had been, Jinx's opinion of Zatanna would likely be rising.

She isn't entirely positive she would be that calm, knowing what Raven's fist could do to whatever it hit.

Raven remains frozen, staring at her hand for a small eternity.

Beads of sweat trickle down her face, glinting strangely in the light cast from Zatanna's magic sphere.

The only sounds in the cave are their breathing, with Raven's being, surprisingly, the harshest of the trio.

"In this instance, being correct and being wise were mutually exclusive, and you picked the wrong one," Raven finally says.

The voice that echoes around the cavern is a disturbing growl, as though an animal were imitating a human instead of the usual tone that went with Raven's anger.

Her hand is jerky as she pulls it back to her side, the way the flesh is violently trembling not missed by the others before it hides beneath her cloak.

Jinx simply stares at her fiancé, her expression utterly unreadable to Zatanna's searching gaze.

"I'll… be back in a moment," Raven mutters.

Jinx can't stop her as darkness envelopes the empath's body.

Only the feeling of her presence, very distantly back the way they'd come, sets her slightly at ease.

Zatanna starts to follow after the empath, but Jinx steps in front of her, her entire body tensed.

"She'll be back in a minute. You've pushed it enough. While I think everything about how that just happened was stupid, you have guts, which should stay inside of your skin," the meta warns into the silence.

As much as she wants to punch the sorceress, she finds Raven's utter lack of a retort of any kind indicative enough about how right the sorceress had been to stop the instinct.

"And she has more control than I gave her credit," the sorceress returns.

The meta turns her eyes back where she feels Raven, her expression harsh.

"Yeah, she does. What the  _hell_ made you think pushin' her  _one_ serious button would be a good idea? You want to talk about acting without considering the outcome? If she hadn't pulled short, your body would be jelly in the cracks between these rocks right now."

Zatanna pales at the image, her arms moving to wrap around her torso as if to stay off the unpleasantness.

"Like I said, you both might die in a few days. I took the opportunity while I had it, so I don't have anything festering when everything's done."

"There was every chance she wouldn't have been able to stop herself. She ain't used to the way her new and improved body is, and you had to've figured that out if you knew she didn't mean to wreck the whole cave before. It wasn't worth it."

Zatanna shrugs, staring in the direction Raven had disappeared to.

"That last part slipped out. I think I'm right, but I didn't mean to say that… Once I started talking, everything just kind of kept going."

Jinx's eyes narrow, the anger burning behind them causing Zatanna to almost step back from the meta.

"You heaped a lot of blame on her, when she's already got enough to deal with always going around in her head. Hell, a lot of what you blamed on her can and should've gone to me, not her. The secrecy when she was a Titan was because of me, and so was everything that happened at Stonehenge."

"She's an adult, and she makes her own decisions."

Jinx stomps forward, her eyes glowing brilliantly in the darkness.

"I didn't say otherwise. She's flawed, like everyone else. Like  _you_. She's also the only reason that I didn't sneak into Titans Tower and kill you in your sleep after she broke off with the Titans."

"W-what?"

"I'm flawed, too. I wanted to make sure that you couldn't start making a new cage as soon as everything was done. I was halfway through talking to Gizmo about how I could get past the Tower's security when she stopped me. She assured me she would keep an eye out, and since it was her asking me, I decided to let her deal with it herself. Whether or not I'd've been able to pull it off back then is a separate question, but Raven's the only reason I didn't make the attempt."

"Why would she stop you?"

Jinx shrugs, fighting the grimace trying to spread across her face.

"Despite what you said, she thinks most things through, where her paternal family ain't concerned. Me killing, or even attacking, you would've brought the League on our asses. We didn't need that kind of shit anymore then than we do now. Aside from that, neither of us actually likes violence."

"Considering how you both deal with issues, you'll have to forgive me when I don't buy that."

"There's a reason I was a thief and not a killer. Let's be realistic. You know what the both of us can do. If we were bloodthirsty monsters, everything we did would have an incredible body count."

"I don't know. Even though I don't disagree with you, I'm pretty sure it's a safe bet that Raven's first instinct was 'let's kill them,' and she stuck with it. That's not a pacifistic approach."

"We deal with things, and do what needs to be done," the meta retorts with another shrug. "It doesn't mean we like brutality. Hell, my plan to deal with you a year ago was because I wanted to protect the woman I love, not because I had any real interest in hurting you."

"That makes me feel all warm inside," Zatanna mutters. "The problem is what you think needs to be done and what actually needs to be done aren't always going to be lined up. Given that you both do whatever you think you need to do to keep each other safe, the difference probably comes up a lot."

Jinx glares over the sorceress's shoulder, finding that she doesn't have a response on the tip of her tongue.

Something flickers across her awareness in her pause, but she doesn't feel up to turning and searching for Raven in the shadows just now.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. You didn't contradict me before, I noticed. If Raven  _did_ go off the rails, under her power or otherwise, you're the only person who knows how to kill her, and you wouldn't do it."

"What makes you think that?" Jinx challenges, though it sounds weak even to her.

"She said she only trusted one person with her true name. The only people she's close to are Victor, Koriand'r, Doctor Fate, and you. Vic and Koriand'r aren't into magic. Fate said if it went really south, he would deal with you, but he made it seem like it would be because of the pure power Nabu gives him. That leaves you being the one she trusted with the name, and the power that goes with that."

Jinx remains silent, causing the sorceress to nod as though she'd confirmed everything.

"Did she really trust you to kill her, knowing damn well you would never follow through with it, though?"

The meta remains silent, her mind rolling over how she'd dealt with Raven's potential transformation.

A sudden pain stabs into her chest at the thoughts in her mind, but the sensation brings clarity to her.

"We do what's necessary," Jinx reiterates. "If it came down to it… I would do it. It would destroy me. Probably literally, given the whole connected souls thing. But I would do it. In a situation where I was forced to, she would never forgive me, anymore than I would forgive myself, if I didn't."

The conviction in Jinx's voice silences any retort Zatanna would make.

"Let's get going. The sooner we finish this, the better."

"Shouldn't we wait for Raven?"

Zatanna shrieks when said empath suddenly materializes from the shadows at Jinx's side, her expression unreadable.

"Let's get going," Raven reiterates.

The sorceress turns and starts walking without another word.

With her back turned, she misses Jinx's entire body relaxing at the demonling's touch on her cheek.

The meta returns the gesture, and both women are unaware of the color that briefly swirls around them.

They are, however, aware of the way they suddenly relax from the mutual contact.

"We definitely need to experiment with that, when this is finished," Jinx murmurs.

Raven nods and begins following behind Zatanna, her hand wrapped in Jinx's own.

Thankfully, they come upon their target within a matter of a few awkward, painfully silent minutes.

Jinx and Raven happily let their attentions be pulled fully into making plans…

…..

 _Author's Notes_ :

Anyone else feel like that was an explosion that's been waiting to happen for a while? I had a great time with this chapter. Next chapter, we get back to the action. I hope you're all enjoying, and I'll see you all next time!


	58. Event Horizon

# LVII. Event Horizon

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

"Shouldn't you be practicing with someone other than your fiancé?" Batman muses.

They all stand in the lower reaches of a pit, the idea of the damage both women could cause making Batman more than ready to relocate them when they'd said they were going to spar.

Jinx and Raven continue circling each other, their expressions entirely stoic as they analyze each other.

"What makes you think that? Afraid we'll pull our punches?" Jinx muses.

"No, more worried about you  _not_ , and bringing the whole cave down on us."

"I think she's underestimating our control, Jinx."

"It looks that way. Hey, if you want to climb back up, Zatanna, feel free."

The sorceress merely shakes her head.

While decidedly not friends, the women are no longer at each other's throats, and she sees no reason to endanger that just now.

"If she finds all of my weaknesses, while I'm holding nothing back and on a level at least on par with Trigon, she can use them on my brothers," Raven adds.

Her voice has the strange echo that being in her true form grants, the effect being amplified by the massive cavern surrounding them.

"And if I can take her when she ain't holdin' back, then unless there's some nasty surprise waitin' for us, her brothers will go down easy," Jinx adds.

"Please don't say that. You know how our luck is," Raven sighs.

"Your luck, babe. Your luck.  _I_ am walking good luck," the meta counters.

"Get sparring or get a room," Zatanna grumbles from where she leans over a large, metal table.

The women ignore her, continuing to watch for the first strike.

Raven is the first to act.

Jinx notices the shadows along the rocky ground becoming slightly darker, her metahuman eyes the only reason she can tell the difference.

It seems, for a brief moment, as though the ground is bubbling beneath her feet.

When the massive fist of soul-self rises up and grabs at her, Jinx is already in the air.

Her eyes flash with energy, and her hands come together, overlapping each other.

Pink light explodes into the air and rushes at the hand, which follows after her.

The hex energy collides with Raven's soul-self, and the darkness immediately turns the same color.

Raven immediately lets go of her hold, just before the magical fist explodes.

Jinx's hands glow as she swipes them in Raven's direction, her body spinning so she can land on the balls of her feet.

" _Havā_!"

Pink vapor rushes at the empath, blinding even her superior vision.

Her acute hearing is the only warning she has of Jinx's rapid approach.

She spins on the balls of her feet and narrowly dodges Jinx's fist, the air exploding with a hex bolt from her closed fist where it would've hit her.

With her body still moving, Jinx can't dodge Raven's sweeping leg.

Raven looms over Jinx's falling form, her body flashing red as she throws a punch into her stomach.

" _Palatāva_!"

Raven's eyes widen as her fist lands.

A pulse of magic lights up Jinx's body, and the empath finds herself launched backward as soon as she hits the spell.

Jinx kicks the ground when she lands, moving into a roll until she's facing where Raven is landing.

Her arm briefly bends in front of her face, before she violently swings it across her body.

Hex magic ripples through the air, a pink spike seeming ready to impale Raven's rising form.

Before it reaches her, Raven's body turns into a solid shadow which falls like water into the rocks below.

Jinx hastily pulls the magic from her strike, not liking the idea of collapsing a supporting wall on the Batcave.

The distraction is what Raven is waiting for, and shadows immediately rise from behind the meta.

A shriek escapes her throat before she can stop it when something cold latches on to her ankles.

Her arms quickly move out to cushion the blow as she slams torso-first into the rock floor.

She pushes down as soon as she clears the spots from her eyes, and sends her body to roll onto her back.

Soul-self expands, quickly nearly catching her arms before she pulls them up.

Raven stands over her, the dark energy swirling around her red skin making her seem like a bloody goddess.

The smirk over getting her on the ground that Jinx expects is nowhere to be found on the demonling's face.

Jinx's hands flare with hex energy, and the soul-self explodes off of her like shattered glass in the next moment.

Black wisps of smoke crackle out of life as she rolls to her feet.

Raven's body vanishes in the next second, nearly sending Jinx into a spin.

The meta's eyes narrow, though, as her senses expand.

Her palms gain a brilliant glow, and with a click of her fingers, a small hex bolt launches into the rocks directly in front of her.

Raven's shadow swirls through the rocks to avoid Jinx as she follows her, hex bolt after hex bolt making the ground dangerously unstable around them.

The meta's eyes widen as a bubble of pure obsidian rises up, attempting to swallow her.

She begins flipping backward, trying to put more and more distance between herself and Raven's trap.

"You need to pay more attention, Jinx."

The meta spins to face the suddenly re-formed Raven.

By the time she meets Raven's eyes, her body is surrounded in soul-self from the soles of her feet to her mouth.

She struggles, but finds her hands firmly planted against her sides, assuring nothing but a decimated lower body if she starts lashing out with her entirely directional hex magic.

"There'll be five of them. If they get you alone and into a corner, nothing good can happen," Raven continues. "And from Wrath's descriptions…"

Jinx notices something dark cross pass Raven's expression, but it's quickly wiped away.

"You can't get put alone in a corner by them, Jinx. Which means you need to pay more attention to everything around you."

A thought occurs to Jinx, and she grins inside of Raven's magical hold.

She forces the expression not to reach her eyes, and nods.

As soon as Raven pulls the darkness away from her mouth, Jinx acts.

" _Jaculor_!"

Raven's eyes widen as a magical wall of force slams into her.

The rocks crack under the force of her body, and she grunts at the ringing pain that settles into the back of her skull.

With her concentration broken, her hold on Jinx vanishes with the sound of boots clicking on the rock ground.

"They'll also be cocky. Especially if you put a little bit of that pride mojo on them. And I'm quick on my feet," Jinx explains, unable to keep the smugness from her voice.

Zatanna stares at the two in shock, the meta's action seeming surprisingly brutal.

Raven, though, finds herself smirking.

"Fair point."

Despite the calm in Raven's voice, Jinx's eyes narrow in suspicion as the empath pushes herself out from the massive indent in the wall.

Her caution, it turns out, is well warranted.

Something stabs into her brain, causing a second of brilliant pain before it vanishes.

Jinx forgets about the sensation in the next second, though.

Raven's eyes flare black, and a wall of soul-self rushes at the meta.

The meta barely flinches, an incredible sense of confidence taking form.

The wall is huge, but it won't be able to bowl her over if she stands her ground.

She brings both hands up, overlapping, as her grin grows.

Hex magic leaves her in a barrage, battering away at the wall until it begins to disappear.

It continues to move towards her, threatening to crush her, though, despite the efforts.

Her magic continues smashing into, with an echoing  _crash_ , it breaks like glass.

For a second, she feels her lips stretched in a painfully wide grin.

Then, she blinks, and realizes her mind is fogged over.

With the realization, the fog instantly dissipates, and she lets her aura expand briefly to destroy any remnants of Raven's psychic hold.

Eyes narrowing, Jinx jumps backward into the air, landing behind Raven just as she rises from the floor.

Raven grunts as her arms are jerked behind her back.

The empath's muscles flex immediately in Jinx's grip, and she tightens her hold.

" _Chāndanā_!"

Jinx's aura expands for a moment, before Raven's entire body is encased in pink light.

The meta is confident that her binding is just as tight as Raven's had been, but her soul-self needs nothing but Raven's mind to attack her with it.

"The difference here," she begins with her breath puffing on Raven's ear, "is that you're you. Any of the Sons of Trigon in this position, and I detonate the whole thing. They ain't making it out of that."

A shadow rises behind her, and Jinx jumps away, letting Raven's soul-self punch straight through her hold.

"The other difference is that there's one of me, and five of them. With powers that could be more dangerous in a fight to the death than pride. Given your plan, that means you'll have to plan for that kind of thing while dealing with the rest," Raven retorts.

"Doesn't matter. I figured it out fast enough, and broke it as soon as I did. Either way, any time I catch one, that's going to be one less brother they've got."

"You need to move faster, Jinx," Raven nearly growls.

The meta casts a saucy grin in the empath's direction, drawing a blush to her cheeks.

"Where've I heard  _that_ before?"

Raven's expression is a mix between laughter, irritation, and attempting to be neutral despite both.

"I'm serious, Jinx. You got that done because I'm on my own. More of them to deal with means you need to use your power even more quickly."

As she says it, the ground rumbles beneath Jinx.

The meta dives backward as several blunted spikes of soul-self rise, coming together in what would surely have cracked her ribs had she been slower.

Jinx plants her hands when she lands, moving into a tumble that ends with her foot rushing into Raven's stomach where she'd risen to again trap her.

Pink flashes at the moment of contact, and Raven is knocked back, her breath rushing out of her as she doubles over.

Jinx follows through, her body colliding with Raven and sending them both crashing to the ground.

"And you're stronger and faster than any of them," Jinx retorts with a slight glare. "If I can keep up with you, I can damn well outpace them."

Raven nods, her breaths coming in noisy wheezes as her body heals itself from what would normally be a decent amount of internal injury.

She realizes just how much power Jinx  _didn't_ throw into her strike as she relaxes against the stones.

She'd seen what her hex bolts could do at full strength.

Even her physiology might not recover without a few hours, at the very least, in a healing trance if the meta threw everything into the kick.

And her brothers didn't have even a slight approximation of that kind of time when they started fighting.

"You… win," she huffs.

Jinx nods, her expression returning back to its usual confident smirk.

"Damn right."

Jinx is suddenly at Raven's side, then, her expression softening.

"And we learned something new. You okay?"

"I'll be fine," Raven huffs. "And good to know that, for dealing with them."

"It looked like you were just slugging at each other. You actually learned something from that?" Zatanna asks without even attempting to hide her shock.

"I can overload her magic," Jinx explains.

"Which means you might be able to outright implode them, if they're stupid enough to not notice for a long enough time."

Jinx's eyes widen, her lips splitting in her Cheshire grin.

"That's even better than what I was thinkin'."

"Do I wantto know what you were thinking?" Zatanna supplies with wide eyes.

"Probably not. Anyway, now we just have to figure out what the plan is for when they get here. Well, there," Jinx responds.

Zatanna bites back a yelp as the women are surrounded in darkness and reappear the next second next to her at the steel table.

Across the surface, numerous large photos lay.

Once they'd found the cave, it had been a simple to direct Batman, and his massive amount of gadgets, right to their soon-to-be-battleground.

The prints put together form a massive analysis of the cave, from ceiling to the bottom of the massive pit in the floor.

"You  _do_ realize that with five of them, they might be able to open the gateway with all but one occupying them, right?" Batman asks.

"No. They need all the power they have to spare. If just one does it, the key will drain him dry and won't have enough energy to function."

Jinx leans forward, tapping the photo of the crater.

The paper reveals a fog of colors swirling through the rocky outcroppings around the hole.

While not massive, less than a handful of people could stand comfortably in the rocks.

"This is the portal. We keep them away, they don't get a gate."

"That's great, but what's the actual plan? If you teleport them out as soon as they get in, they'll just go back again."

"We're not going to teleport them out," Raven answers.

"Then you're really okay bringing Gotham down? One explosion there, and it could spread wide. That's the whole point."

With a huff, Zatanna stabs her index finger at the crater, as well, while glaring between the women.

"Let's say you get their key and break it. Cool. All they need to do is throw the magic they were going to use otherwise at this crater, and  _boom_! Hello, Gemworld."

"Gemworld?" Batman muses, unable to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

"Not relevant," Zatanna sighs. "The point is, the cavern's useless. This crater is it. It's going to work for the Hellmouth. It's the reason that the whole cavern isn't a swirling pit of hallucinations and nightmares."

"We gathered," Raven muses. "It doesn't do anything but make our jobs easier. We have a much smaller area to defend."

"Why not just fill it in? I can get a few tons of liquid concrete down there by the end of the day," Batman offers.

"Seriously? Like… what? Just a call and suddenly you have that just sitting around for you?" Jinx asks.

"It's not that easy, but more or less."

Jinx turns to face Raven, grinning at her fiancé.

"Could you imagine how much Mr. Bones would  _love_ that?"

"Uh, Jinx?"

Despite her lack of pupils, Batman can feel her pupils shift in his direction.

The sensation makes it surprisingly difficult to keep his expression neutral.

Jinx notices it, too, rolling her eyes at the empath.

"Oh, please. The guy's got tabs on everyone in the Justice League. There's no way he doesn't have our number," the meta quips.

"Actually, just Jinx's."

Jinx turns to face Batman, her skin going slightly paler.

"What's that now?"

Batman gestures with a nod at Raven, who stares back unblinkingly.

"No records before she got to this dimension, and after that, there's still barely anything that doesn't have to do with the Titans. They have records on you, though," he explains.

"Yeah, I'm lucky like that," Raven mutters.

"Like I said. So, about this concrete. Rae, you're the best standard we've got. With how deep that thing is, could you punch a hole through that much concrete?"

Raven frowns in thought, staring down at the picture.

"The concrete settles and becomes part of the cave, the magic gets sucked into it, and then I hit it. In Zatanna's eloquently put description,  _boom_."

Her eyes narrow even further, then.

"Actually, it might be made worse. Right now, it's just a hole full of magic. The magic comes from somewhere. Put concrete in it, and you're basically sticking a cork into a bottle full of a volatile chemical before shaking it. Eventually, it's going to explode."

The cave is silent for a moment as that thought sinks in.

"So no concrete, then."

"No. So we need to find some way to keep them out of that crater."

"I don't suppose you could wrap them all in a bubble as soon as they pop in, and teleport them away?"

"Either they vanish in the wind or they just pop back in. No, we need to take care of them in that cavern," Jinx responds.

Raven's eyes sweep across the photos once more as a plan comes together.

"They have three entrances. One from above, one at the end of the tunnel, and the way we first came in. We need to trap them. If we can do it so fast they don't know what to do with themselves, even better."

"If we don't know which way they're coming from, that's going to be a pain."

Jinx finds in that moment that she definitely doesn't like the expression on Raven's face.

"I cave in the entrance from above. Two entrances left. And I break the roof behind us, and the way to the Batcave is blocked. We put some sigils around there that prevent teleportation, and they aren't popping out once they're in."

"So that leaves them one way in. So we set a trap on the last one? Like what? Drop the other side on their heads?"

"It wouldn't kill them. But it would scare them off, probably. And I really don't want to think about the potential for them to just go to a different portal right now."

Jinx's eyes narrow in suspicion, finding Raven's own gaze refusing to rise to meet hers.

"So what's the plan?"

"With only one way in, they'll be coming through a bottle neck. They won't have any way out once they've gotten in, except for going back the way they came. As soon as they're in, I break the other side, and Fate raises a barrier. From there, it's a simple fight until I get their key, and then we end them.."

"That… that could work," Zatanna murmurs.

Her eyes move over the pictures, looking for possible faults.

"And we'll be trapped in a room where we can't pop out, either, with all the exits blocked," Jinx points out.

"You and Fate won't be. Once the dust's cleared, he goes to the other side and works with us to break through one of the blocks."

"That's not how that works," Zatanna mutters, frowning hard.

Jinx glares at Raven, finding her refusal to meet the contact more irritating by the second.

"I'm going to use my blood for the spell."

"You'd need to use a lot of blood for that many symbols."

"Any other medium, and it works universally, or it doesn't work and the whole thing's moot. My blood is their blood. If I trap myself, I trap them."

"If something happens to the roof or floor, and you're trapped in there… Raven-"

"This is the best plan," the empath interrupts.

"No, it's just the best we can come up with right now," Jinx growls.

Raven finally looks up, the emotions in her eyes making Jinx's heart skip a beat.

Fear is  _not_ a normal look for the demonling to have.

"Then by all means, Jinx, come up with a better plan. I'm going to be laying the groundwork, but the spell itself will need to be as fresh as possible to be the most potent, and have the best chance to keep them…  _us_ … in. If we don't have a better plan by the morning after tomorrow, I'm going through with it, and we'll have to hope the area is as stable as I think it is."

Jinx's eyes narrow even further, wanting to grill her fiancé over what she isn't saying but knowing she shouldn't.

"Then we'll brainstorm," Zatanna says into the ensuing silence. "Because even though we don't like each other, that's a shitty plan."

With a nod, Raven's hand tightens on Jinx's and they're swallowed by darkness for a moment.

Jinx spins on the empath the second they materialize in their new room, the setting of Angela Roth's home already surprisingly comfortable.

"You're not planning on dying. What's the real plan?" she demands.

"That is the real plan."

"Bullshit," the meta hisses.

"Unless you come up with a better solution, it's the real plan, Jinx," Raven returns with a shrug.

Jinx watches as Raven's lip curls at one side, her whole body relaxing at the expression.

"And wouldn't it just be a shame if, when the fight was all over, and you were with Doctor Fate, the cavern collapsed, and a tunnel that's just small enough for my soul-self to slip through were crushed, in a cavern covered in my blood?"

Jinx's jaw drops, the plan fully settling into her brain.

"Holy shit. Raven, that… wouldn't last long."

"A month at most," Raven agrees easily.

"And it would leave me holding the bag for all of the shit we've done?" Jinx trails off with a decidedly unhappy voice.

"So little faith," Raven laughs. "What'd be the point if I couldn't enjoy my new, official, status of being temporarily dead and crushed to dust under tons of rubble if I didn't have my wife to enjoy it with?"

"So… c'mon! This is just mean," Jinx complains, her wavering voice more than matching her blush.

"Well, I 'die,' you disappear in the confusion, and I pull you out as soon as were clear."

"You know I'm not that good, right? Fate will be there. He'll know the second I don't break down."

"Doctor Fate won't be fooled anyway. With him being the only one down there with us, and knowing of our vacation plans, he'll know the second they clear the rubble. He'll also know, thanks to knowing about the vacation plans, that it's purely temporary, and as long as they don't have any reason to ask him to find us, we should have a bit of leeway with how long we have."

"You've put a lot of thought into this."

"I wasn't sure of how to do it until we saw the cavern, but yeah."

Grinning, Jinx throws her arms around the empath's neck.

"And now, all we have to do is make sure that they die, and we're in the clear."

The metahuman doesn't point out how unlikely it is that things are going to go that smoothly.

Raven doesn't acknowledge the fact, either, for the moment…

…

 _Author's Notes_ :

Havā- Hindi: "wind"

Palatavā- Hindi: "rebound"

Jaculor- Latin: "throw"

Chāndanā- Hindi: "bind"

Bit of a later update than usual. This chapter went through a surprising number of re-writes before I decided how I wanted it to go. Thankfully, I enjoy the end result, as I hope you readers do! As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts! See you next time.


	59. Collision

# LVIII. Collision

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

The fight starts brutally.

The Sons of Trigon arrive early in the day, seeming completely oblivious to the way the shadows deep in the cave are too dark.

The entire cavern is lit up by the swirling pool of magic that they will be using for the Hellmouth, and if they'd paid attention, they would notice that almost an entire wall to the back is covered in unnaturally dark shadows.

Behind her illusion, Raven finds herself smirking, though the expression doesn't reach her eyes.

As expected, there are only five of them, and clearly, they haven't been having an easy time while hiding.

All of them have clothes covered in tears and crusted blood, and the tallest of them has several distinct burn marks coating his ancient-seeming jeans.

Despite the apparent damage, their power radiates through the air, their reddish-brown skin catching the shadows from the pit's magic to create horrific shadows.

Raven's eyes narrow, and both women tense in waiting as they approach the pit.

When all five stand at the edges, the least damaged of them reaches into his ridiculously expensive suit's pockets and begins rummaging around.

" _ **Hurry up, Greed**_ ," an obese man grunts. " _ **Those angels are right on our asses**_!"

The suited man sneers, his hand wrapping around something.

" _ **Just eat them like the last one. We've bought ourselves**_   **plenty** _ **of time, with you scaring them with**_   **that** _ **display**_ ," the lanky, burnt sibling sighs.

His voice is almost a monotone, and Jinx finds that it almost makes her feel lethargic just hearing it.

The obese man grins, the expression wrinkling his bald forehead and baring fangs.

" _ **Never had**_ **angel** _ **before. She was quite tasty**_ ," he muses, drawing a revolted shiver from Jinx.

" _ **Yes, yes, I'm sure she was. Greed, if you've lost that goddamn key, I'm going to pull your head off**_ ," a thin, sharp-featured man growls.

Jinx stares at the new speaker, wondering what heritage would produce a body so angular and jagged, to the point that every part of him seems like it can be a stabbing implement.

" _ **Try not to emulate Wrath**_ ," 'Greed' sighs.

His manner and appearance are both drastically different than Raven's other siblings.

Unlike the tall, dirty-seeming man, his frame seems to be thin by effort.

Muscles ripple under the mostly unblemished, crisp suit as he searches.

His military-cut, slicked black hair is drastically different from the greasy mop of elbow-length black hair of the lanky brother, or the spiky hair of the angular man's.

Jinx finds herself unimpressed by the clear attempt to make a showcase of himself.

His hand finally clenches around something, and with a satisfied huff of air, he pulls it free.

Jinx's eyes widen as she sees the key to Hell.

She doesn't know what, exactly, she'd been expecting for a key meant to open that realm's door.

As she stares, though, she feels her stomach turning.

Its design itself is simple, with three teeth and a ring large enough to cover three of Greed's large fingers.

With her vision, though, she can make out far more detail than that.

The key is made of serrated, pitted bone, in its entirety.

Raven, too, finds herself wincing as she briefly looks at the key.

Dark, evil power rises from the white bone, and her empathy lets the screams attached to the key, and the realm, rip their way into her mind.

She jerks her head to the side, and gives Jinx a nod.

The meta's body tightens, and then Raven moves.

The Sons of Trigon all feel a bare flick of power the next second.

It's all the warning they get before a wall of black soul-self suddenly forms in the air and sweeps against the ground.

Rock and smoke flies up as it slams into them, aiming to crush them all into the opposite wall.

A brilliant flash of red floods the caves, and Raven watches as they phase through the wall.

By the time they have, though, Jinx has already thrown a bolt of hex magic.

The ground rumbles as it hits, and their entrance is covered in a massive pile of rubble.

The Sons of Trigon all stare at the pathway, and Raven enjoys watching as they attempt to teleport out the second they realize the trap.

Red blobs rush at the wall, and as soon as they make contact, the sigils along the wall simultaneously pulse with black energy.

Their bodies bounce back, slamming hard into the ground.

With the signal given, Doctor Fate's ankh burns brightly in the air, revealing him at last.

Golden power radiates through the air as he points his palms at either side of the cave.

" _Signa hac_!"

His power expands, and in the next moment, they're trapped in a dome of golden light.

The magic expands through the entire cave's length, giving the women enough room to maneuver and fight.

It also stops a centimeter above the ground, sealing the Sons of Trigon off from the pit.

Raven doesn't mock them over paying so little attention.

She in fact barely makes a sound as she rushes through the air at her siblings, her eyes flooding with red light.

Greed's eyes narrow as she hones in on him, a claw of soul-self tearing at his neck.

He dives backward through the air, dodging the swipe with a huff.

" _ **You must be**_ **Raven** ," he muses.

So distracted by Raven's apparent aggression is he that he doesn't notice Jinx until she's directly behind him.

Hex magic crackles in the air, finally pressing against his senses.

" _ **And**_ **friend** ," Greed adds with a grin.

He jumps to the side to avoid her hex bolt, nearly running into Raven's magic-coated fist.

His body turns red, and easily bends to avoid the attack.

The women follow him as he shifts back through the air.

Raven's eyes widen at the rush of power heading for them, and immediately wraps an arm around Jinx's waist.

The fist of soul-self stabs through where they would have been.

" _ **Our first meeting, and you're giving Greed all the attention. This family doesn't play with favoritism, since you kicked the old man out**_ " the obese man quips.

Raven turns towards her sibling, finding the other three grouping around him.

A subtle nod sends Jinx back into action, her eyes burning brilliant pink as she rushes after their main target.

" _ **I think he has something they want**_ ," the lanky man states.

Raven feels something pressing on her mind, and for a brief second, her eyelids droop.

Staring at his slacken face, and his incredibly unkempt features, somehow makes her tired.

Realizing what's happening, she lets her eyes narrow instead, letting the Sons of Trigon think nothing of her near-miss on catching his ability.

" _ **Sloth**_ ," she snarls.

In response, the lanky man releases a jaw-cracking yawn into his hand, his head vaguely nodding as he does.

" _ **Wha's yer first clue**_?" he asks tiredly.

Raven moves her eyes to the others, finding it odd how they make no move to save their brother from Jinx's assault.

Just as she thinks of it, a flash of pink sets off, and something explodes.

The sound echoes painfully around their magical bubble, rippling straight past her ears and into her brain.

" _ **Can we get on with this? You and the metahuman are barely twigs. Not filling at all,**_ " the obese man complains.

" _ **Gluttony**_."

The obese man turns a raised brow to the angular brother at his side.

" _ **Should I be offended by that**_?"

Before the other sibling can answer, a loud grunt sounds behind their sister.

Keeping her senses focused on her siblings, Raven chances a glance behind her.

She grins as the recognizes the source of the grunt.

Greed presses back against Fate's barrier, holding a spot on his left shoulder and giving loud huffs for breaths.

Pink smoke rises from the spot he's clutching, as well as several centimeters to both the right and the bottom.

"You're a lucky sonuvabitch," Jinx growls.

Her pink eyes narrow further, and she lets more hex magic build in her fingertip.

" _ **She's going for kill-shots. Stop playing with your food, before she makes you stop breathing**_ ," a man wearing a bright, neon blue jumpsuit hisses.

The yet-unidentified demonling narrows all four eyes on Jinx, sending a shiver through the meta.

His expression is at harsh odds with his strangely melodic, soothing voice.

Despite her attention being fully on Greed, Jinx gains a noticeable blush as the voice brushes across her mind like silk.

Raven feels her soul-self warping the air around her as she notices the expression.

He sees her attack well before it slams into where he was standing.

She watches Lust dive backward through the air, a smug grin on his lips.

" _ **And that would make**_ **you** _ **Envy,**_ " Raven muses at the last, angular brother.

His misshapen jaw bends, and his fangs bear as he releases a very animalistic laughing sound.

Jinx watches as Greed's brain finally registers where the hex bolts had been aimed at, and he pales.

She curses the demon's luck.

Her shot had been spot-on, until he'd tripped dodging the previous bolt.

Despite him continuing to live, though, Jinx feels herself grinning at the sight of blood from the smoking hole in his expensive-looking suit.

Raven starts to head after the retreating Lust, before forcing her feet to land on the barrier floor.

The other three siblings are all staring intently at Jinx, right past Raven's own body.

The meta is too focused on getting the key to worry about the coming attack, and Raven recalls that she's supposed to be playing defense.

The air darkens as massive swaths of soul-self rush at her fiancé.

A claw rushes out from Raven's body, grabbing hold of the fastest spike.

The red energies swirl as Raven's energy clamps down, holding the attack completely still.

The other three continue moving, all of them swirling around Raven to head for her lover.

" _ **Azarath Metrion**_ **Zinthos**!"

Raven's eyes turn completely white, and her siblings watch in surprise as her aura explodes around her.

From her back, hands of soul-self sprout like ruby wings, repeating the same process of grabbing as the first one had.

All four of her eyes narrow dangerously, and the Sons of Trigon feel their energy being compressed.

Despite how much effort they throw into stabbing the metahuman in the back, their limbs can't move.

And then, Raven's supernatural arms lift, and take all four of their limbs with them.

They find their bodies being pushed back as their limbs are bent and warped until the tips are aimed at their own bodies.

They manage to call back their energy just before she would pierce all of them through the heart with their own power.

As Raven plans for her next move, Jinx continues blasting at Greed.

Each attack is narrowly avoided, pulses of pink light rushing through the barrier around them like colored water being displaced.

" _ **Enough of this**_ ," Greed snarls.

Jinx kicks into the air, avoiding the red blade that would have swept right through her legs.

His eyes burn bright red, and the meta's body tenses as his magic rushes out at her.

Raven doesn't put any conscious thought into sending her own soul-self out to wrap around the meta.

For a moment, Jinx simply vanishes.

Red smoke briefly clouds Greed's eyes, leaving him unaware of the darkness that pops into existence behind him.

Jinx slams into him, her knee sending an audible  _crack_ through the air as it connects with the back of his skull.

A wave of pink light explodes out from the contact, and Greed's entire body rushes through the air.

Disoriented as he is, he doesn't recognize the loss of the key in his hand as he slams face-first into the barrier.

Jinx catches it before it touches the ground, spinning it easily on her index finger.

A satisfied grin spreads across her lips, and she gives Raven a nod.

"And that is how your whole plan fell apart," she quips.

The demonling is at her side in the next moment, a dark wave of energy rushing against her as soon as Jinx puts the key in her hands.

" _ **Give us the key, Pride, or what you face will be something you can't even fathom,**_ " Gluttony growls.

In response, her hand is encased in darkness, and the next moment reveals that the key is no longer there.

" _ **And**_ **that** _ **is how we ensured you don't get to fix your plan**_ ," she adds, though Jinx's grin is missing from her features.

" _ **If we kill her, that pocket dimension will pop right open**_ ," Greed grunts from where he pushes himself to his feet.

Jinx's grin widens at the sight of his thoroughly bruised face, making him glare even more.

Lust stares at the women, his expression even more smug than Jinx's.

" _ **I can think of one way to get her to give it back to us without the hassle**_ ," he muses.

His tone sends another shiver down Jinx's spine, and she lets her hex magic pour into the air in preparation for whatever he's planning.

" _ **Eating her won't be a hassle, though,**_ " Gluttony retorted.

"So, uh, how's that work, exactly? Do you  _literally_ eat people?" Jinx asks, cursing her curiosity.

His eyes latch onto her, and his lips split in a grin that reveal long, thick fangs.

" _ **Not literally, no, but it's close enough to count**_."

The women watch as he kneels down, his hands touching Fate's barrier.

Something in Raven's stomach tightens, and she realizes that he's far more dangerous than his appearances would suggest.

" _Go_ ," Jinx hisses urgently.

Raven's body vanishes in darkness, a claw proceeding her out from the portal behind Gluttony.

His brothers move to his back.

Envy's soul-self expands through the air, batting her attack away with a startling strength.

When Raven's body follows behind through the portal, Sloth is waiting.

Despite his lanky build, his fist slams into Raven's jaw with the force of a small freight train, sending her hurtling towards the barrier.

Before she reaches it, Gluttony grins, and for a brief second, his eyes turn pure gold.

By the time Raven would have hit the glowing wall, it's no longer there, her body instead being buried in a wall of rubble.

Jinx stares at Raven's leg where it twitches under the rocks, her eyes wide.

Gluttony releases a loud burp, and rises back to his feet.

He happily pats his stomach, as Doctor Fate raises his hands.

" _ **Don't waste the time, geezer. I'll just keep eating whatever energy you lay out for me,**_ " Gluttony laughs.

With his grin growing, a wall of red suddenly springs up.

Fate's body is encased in gold just before it slams into him, his own barrier being wrapped in Gluttony's overlapping barrier.

" _ **And I can throw it right back, too. I'm going to keep you out of things**_ ," he laughs as he fights to crush Doctor Fate.

" _ **We'll worry about getting out later. Right now, we need the key**_ ," Greed adds.

Jinx jumps, his voice coming from right behind her.

With her attention so stuck on Raven's struggling form, she hadn't noticed the teleporting demonling.

His hands clamp down on her elbows, the bones crackling painfully under the grip.

She shrieks as her body is lifted high, and just as quickly brought down.

Her body slams into the rocky ground, sending a spray of dirt and blood up from the small crater.

A hand clamps down on the back of her throat, and she whimpers as he lifts her using the same handhold.

Despite her daze, she latches onto her powers and lets them rise, her eyes burning dark pink.

He simply smirks at her, the expression ruined by the completely broken half of his lip, the burn marks and blood on his suit, and the dark black ring around one of his upper eyes.

Rocks explode into the air, and Raven is once more on her feet, though an ugly gash across her forehead slowly leaks blood down the side of her face now.

Her eyes immediately hone in on Jinx's dangling form.

Greed notices the expression, and nods at her.

" _ **I'm a businessman, first. In exchange for the key, I won't only**_ **not** _ **snap the meta's neck like a twig, but I'll even give her back to you, instead of handing her over to Jacob.**_ "

" _ **Why bargain? We can just kill her and get both,**_ " Lust sneers.

" _ **If it means we can get this done and over with sooner, I don't care either way,**_ " Sloth muses around a yawn.

Raven stares at her brother for a moment, noticing the way Jinx's hand is rising towards him.

" _ **I told Wrath the same thing I'll tell you. Pick a smaller target, and maybe I would let it slide. But I can't trade anything for the universe, even the people I love**_ ," she retorts.

Whatever Greed's response would have been is a complete mystery.

He takes his eyes off of Jinx for a second to retort at Raven, and the meta uses the distraction effectively.

Her body ignites in pink light, and her hand comes up to rest against his chest.

" _Havā_ **,"** she snarls.

Oxygen rushes into the space around them, enriching the air.

Her fingers  _click_ , and a small, green spark flies towards him.

Just as the oxygen ignites, she clicks her fingers again, and the hex magic mixes in with the burst of flames to make Greed's luck just that much worse.

The three factors combine, and Jinx has just enough time to slam a knee into him and drop back before a massive explosion is set off.

The burst throws her hard into the ground, her mind fogging briefly at the jarring sensation.

Even with her head trauma, though, she realizes how much worse Greed has it.

An echoing, guttural scream floods the cavern as his body is completely engulfed in the magical fire.

The flames swirl in a vortex around his lungs are charred, the bad luck spreading through his entire body with every agonized breath.

In the span of a few seconds, the flames sputter out once again.

A pile of bones is left in their wake, even the white marred with horrid black marks and foul smoke.

" _ **Holy shit**_ ," Gluttony grunts.

Jinx shakes her head as she stands to face them, spots still dancing along her vision.

"Anyone else want to put their hands on me?" she hisses.

In her daze, she doesn't recognize the feeling that briefly plays across her brain.

It takes her a second to realize that there are suddenly two Ravens in the room, and several more to wonder if she got hit harder than she thought.

Raven's eyes narrow at her brother's transformed body, finding Envy suddenly gone.

Envy stalks towards the confused Jinx, his smug expression looking incredibly warped on Raven's features.

" _ **I'm hopin' you were just bein' rhetorical, 'cause I think everyone in the room but the magic helmet wants to put their hands on you**_ ," Envy-Raven muses.

He grunts as Raven suddenly swipes at him with a mass of darkness, her eyes narrowed in anger.

"I agree with Rae's sentiment," Jinx adds as he dodges away from the swipes. "Shape-shifting doesn't work so well when you don't bother with anything except looks."

She feels Envy-Raven's eyes on her for a moment, and an incredibly creepy smile spreads across her lips.

Her eyes widen when she suddenly vanishes.

She feels the air shift behind her, and immediately lunges to the side.

Raven flies at the unoccupied space, sending a fist at her doppelgänger's body as she briefly surfaces from a portal.

Before her hit connects, the portal snaps closed, and she quickly jerks backward to avoid losing her hand.

Sloth appears in front of her, and between the women, before she can follow after Envy.

She dodges out of the way of his grabbing hand, only for him to follow with a blast of concentrated magic.

A grunt sounds as the strike slams home in her chest, throwing her back towards the rocks again.

" _ **Don't let them work together**_ ," Lust barks.

A fist lashes into her face, nearly bowling Raven over.

Raven feels her mental defense slipping for the instant it takes for Sloth's power to take root.

Even as his power begins flowing into her brain, she finds her muscles suddenly too tired to get her away.

For a brief moment, it feels like her entire reserve of strength is being ripped from her, and she wonders at the way her muscles and bones feel painfully brittle.

The sensation vanishes the next second, though in its place, an incredible exhaustion presses down on her.

" _ **Looks like it doesn't work the same way, on you**_ ," Sloth muses.

Raven blinks at him, her eyes narrowing briefly before the gesture almost ends in closing them entirely in exhaustion.

" _ **What… did…**_ "

She struggles to think of words, much less finding the energy to string them together in an audible question.

Sloth grins, the expression curling his gaunt face into a mask of harsh shadows.

He steps closer to her, and closes a hand around her shoulder.

She fights with everything she has not to fall in a limp pile of limbs to the ground.

Soon enough, though, she's sitting on the rocky ground, and Sloth's hand only tightens on her shoulder as he sits next to her.

" _ **You guys take care of the meta. Sis an' I are going to take a nap while you guys play**_ ," Sloth says through a mix between laughter and yawning…

…..

 _Author's Notes_ :

Signa hac- Latin: "seal this domain"

Havā- Hindi: "air"

It's been a while since a major fight broke out, and I'm hoping all of you are enjoying this as much as I am. See you all next time!


	60. Pride

# LIX. Pride

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx stares at Raven's slumped form, her heart rate skyrocketing.

"What the fuck-"

Her question is cut off as Envy-Raven's fist strikes at her face.

She ducks around the punch only to be met by a fist of soul-self rushing behind Envy-Raven's back and smashing into her stomach.

She gags as nausea rushes through her entire body, but remains standing.

" _ **Don't go thinking Pride's abandoned you. Jack's power would usually have turned her into a lethargic, aged shell of what a person would be like at their worst. Apparently our powers don't work right on each other**_ -" Lust muses.

" _ **Mine do**_ ," Gluttony adds with a grin.

" _ **But we still have**_ **an** _ **effect. I'm guessing it's all she can do not to pass out right now**_."

Jinx ignores them, pushing herself into motion to get distance between Envy-Raven and herself.

" _ **As soon as we're done with you, we'll be seeing how far that goes with her,**_ " Envy-Raven sneers.

" _ **We can't kill her**_ ," Lust argues.

Envy-Raven stops stalking towards Jinx, his/her eyes narrowing.

" _ **Are you**_ **kidding** _ **me**_?" Gluttony snarls.

Lust glares at them in turn.

" _ **James and Jared are dead, and the damned church screwed up those artifacts. We need her power to get this done**_ ," he growls back at them.

With them distracted, Envy-Raven's attention seems to be off of Jinx for the moment.

She aims at him/her and fires off a hex-bolt, only to find the air empty the next second.

Instinct drives her into a forward tumble, narrowly letting her escape decapitation.

She continues moving the second she touches down, kicking hard into the ground.

The jarring sensation radiates up her leg, but it sends her into a roll across the ground, making the red spikes of energy he/she fires missing her.

Jinx feels the air shift around her, and comes up on her feet on the next roll, stopping just short of his/her body where it springs in front of her.

" _ **Azarath Metrion**_ **Zinthos**!" he/she intones.

Obsidian soul-self spreads through the air, and Jinx's eyes widen as the roof is covered in darkness.

The shadows seem to bubble for a moment, and then, spikes are rushing down at her.

She brings her hands together, and hex magic sparks in the air around her until she appears to have armor made of electricity.

" _Kraśa_!"

Her hex magic launches through the air, stabbing straight through the darkness.

A loud rumble echoes, and suddenly, Envy-Raven finds him/herself sweating profusely.

His/her soul-self bends under the weight of the collapsed section of the cavern roof.

The spikes raining down on the meta waver, and the entire swath of energy vanishes the next moment.

Jinx barely has the time to pull her arms back to her sides before he decides to go for a more physical attack.

She ducks under his lunge, and more magic swirls in her eyes.

He/she soars over her head, and she slams her hand into his/her stomach as soon as it's above her.

Hex magic explodes out, and Envy-Raven releases an incredibly loud squeal as his/her body is thrown straight up.

He/she slams into the roof of the cavern, luck being the only reason several stalactites don't impale his/her body fatally.

Rocks rain down to the floor as he/she falls, leaving a large crater in the ground.

Jinx watches with a satisfied grin as his/her body shifts, Raven's form bleeding away from the angular body like spilled ink into the cracks in the ground.

"Rae would've just redirected the rubble to fall on the aggressor," she critiques.

With a loud huff, he pushes himself off the ground, his mop of hair falling to cover half his face.

" _ **She's stronger than you**_ ," he hisses. " _ **You should've been crushed**_."

"She's also a helluva lot  _smarter_  than  _you,_ too," she retorts with a shrug. "I get it, now, though. You pick up on who your target envies, and turn into them, powers and all."

" _ **Clever, for a human**_ ," he snarls.

"And it ain't gonna' work."

" _ **You're pretty cocky for a human who almost had her ribs turned to dust,**_ " Gluttony mocks.

"Yeah, he's physically strong. All of you are. So what? Do you have  _any_ idea how many people with superstrength we've fought? That shit doesn't impress me."

Envy cracks his knuckles in threat, his teeth bared at her.

" _ **How about I change that for you**_?"

"You might get their abilities, but you don't get their brain, or their power reserves. You might be able to do what Rae can do now, but you can't last as long as her, and you  _sure as hell_  can't think like she does. So throw her power at me as much as you want, but ya' ain't beatin' me."

Envy's eyes narrow to slits as his weakness is so easily laid out.

" _ **She's got you pegged, Jesse**_ ," Lust mocks.

His voice again brushes against Jinx, distracting her from the similar sensation on her mind itself.

Jinx realizes her mind is fogging over, and her eyes slip to Lust.

"Get the  _fuck_ out of my head, Casanova," she snarls.

He smirks at her, pressing more of his power against her will.

" _ **Come now. You don't**_ **really** _ **want that, do you? It feels great, doesn't it**_?" he asks in a suddenly silken tone.

Strangely, the tone is Raven's, and the fact confuses the meta.

Warmth spreads from her brain to the rest of her body, and she bites her tongue to prevent a very unflattering sound from escaping.

" _ **Give in to it, and just enjoy yourself. You don't have to suffer an agonizing death if you just act like a good puppet**_ ," 'Raven' murmurs.

Envy turns narrowed eyes on Lust, clearly disagreeing with the statement.

Still, he doesn't say anything, for fear of breaking Lust's control before he gets a chance to behead her.

Jinx feels her eyes becoming half-lidded, as the voice caresses her mind.

An idea occurs to Envy, and he grins as he once again plucks at the meta's brain until he takes on Raven's form.

Lust grimaces as he approaches Jinx.

Raven's voice circles around in Jinx's head as he comes close, and she realizes the utterly frozen quality that Raven's voice doesn't actually possess.

From where she sits, Raven watches the display with a muffled sense of what's happening.

Even as dazed and out of it as she is, she recognizes the burst of clarity in Jinx's eyes from where she sits.

Lust doesn't have the same chance.

Her hands suddenly spring up into the air, and massive hex bolts launch into both brothers' chest.

Pink light rushes through both of their auras before making a massive, electrical arc between them.

Lust's mouth opens in a silent scream, and his eyes go completely blank as smoke rises into the air from his ears.

Envy-Raven's own eyes go through the same thing, though the assault doesn't seem to burn his/her mind as much as it did his/her brother's.

With an animalistic grunt, he hunches over before launching at her.

Jinx gasps and falls backward, his/her body toppling down on top of her.

There's a strange, pink cast to his eyes as he glares down at her, and Jinx realizes what happened as he/she rises to straddle her waist.

Evidently, bad luck and empathic abilities, particularly ones that induce primal instincts like lust, are a very bad combination.

Especially when lust could so easily be focused on blood.

A claw tears past her thick shirt's material, piercing straight through her shoulder.

She grunts as agony flares through her entire body, and he/she continues grunting as he/she pulls down, taking a swath of fabric with him/her.

His/her movements jar his/her body, and Jinx bites back a scream as, in consequence, a knee is driven into one of her wrists.

The bone  _cracks_ , and the meta's sight turns white as he/she continues moving, now on top of the shattered bone.

She's barely aware of the way his/her claw once again stabs into her, this time in her side.

Her breathing rasps through dried, tortured lungs, and she bites back a scream as he viciously rips the hand free.

Raven's mind stirs somewhat at the pained sound, and Sloth is too focused on the spectacle to notice the gritting of her teeth.

An animalistic grin curves his lips, made even worse with the long fangs and overall jackal-like bone structure.

He/she raises a fist, and she feels her eyes widen as his hips swivel until it's hovering over her leg.

She lets instinct take over, and acts immediately.

Glaring up at him/her through misty eyes, she bucks.

His/her body briefly lifts with the movement, and she rips her arm out from beneath his/her knee.

She slams it into the ground, and the entire cavern trembles as she pulls on her power.

With his/her mind entirely burnt out, Envy-Raven is oblivious to the rocks at his/her back.

Just as his/her glowing fist connects with her knee, a pillar rushes up, slamming into the back of his/her skull with the same echoing  _crunch_ her joint releases.

A screech pulls its way free from her throat, the sound sending Raven's heart rate spiking.

The demonling finally finds the source of the touch on her mind, and begins fighting.

Despite his appearances and the sin he's associated with, Sloth's power is incredibly formidable, she finds.

There is a physical, literal drain on her on top of the mental exhaustion his proximity induces.

She continues struggling, though, the effort made easier the longer his attention is diverted.

Gluttony and Sloth watch as Envy's body returns once more to being his own body, though he remains on top of her.

With a snarl, Jinx kicks upward, sending him flying until his body imbeds into a section of cavern wall.

Without his weight on her, she finds that her entire arm is radiating pure, white-hot agony, and refuses to move as she commands.

Her knee is also in similar condition, and just the thought of moving her leg nearly sends her into hyperventilation.

She turns her head at the sound of rocks crunching, and finds Gluttony walking leisurely towards her with a grin splitting his lips.

" _ **You killed more of us than Pride has. As far as humans go, you might actually be a good meal, after all,**_ " he laughs.

She raises her functioning arm at him in response, her eyes narrowing in determination.

"That isn't happening," she snarls.

Before she can release a hex-bolt, his body is covered in red light, and suddenly he's not there anymore.

Her eyes follow movement, and she finds him standing several meters away.

His grin, if possible, is even larger.

" _ **Keep trying. It's fun to have food that resists, for once**_ ," he laughs.

Pain squeezes her chest as Jinx realizes she's being toyed with.

Given her immobility and his teleportation ability, there was almost no chance she was going to hit him before he reached her.

Red light swirls on the edge of the cave, and she realizes that despite that fact, he's still putting a massive amount of his power into containing the bubble of gold that marks Doctor Fate's resistance.

Looking more closely at him, she realizes his entire body is drenched in sweat, and the strain is more than likely the reason he hadn't jumped in to help the other two.

The realization does nothing to help her, though, as she also realizes her own power is vanishing with every drop of blood leaking from her numerous wounds.

" _ **You can't heal like us. You're going to be dead**_ **long** _ **before you can mend everything he did to you**_ ," Gluttony laughs as he reads her unprotected mind.

Raven watches the obese man approach Jinx's prone form, and a snort sounds next to her.

" _ **Y'know, thinking about it, I think Wrath and I are the only ones not into torture out of our family. He's probably going to draw this out.**_ "

Raven's eyes narrow to slits at that, and with a growl, she lets her soul-self expand.

For a brief moment, Sloth doesn't realize why his relaxed form is flying.

With him away from her side, Raven feels the mental side of his ability vanish, and she rises from the ground.

Her cloak swirls around her like flowing water, and the entire cave becomes as dark as it should be without the magical pit.

The darkness swallows the walls a moment after Envy pushes himself onto his feet, looking incredibly dazed, but once more in control of his faculties.

Raven's chest tightens at the sight of his hands coated in blood, of which almost none is his, and her anger floods her mind.

Deep, harsh shadows cover everything, and Gluttony turns frightened eyes on his sister.

Even with their superior sight, the only thing that the half-demons, or Jinx, can see are the burning, red slits of Raven's eyes.

Envy uses the sight as a marker, and presses his power into Raven's mind.

Her anger blots out his ability, and she feels a cruel smile curling her lips.

With her power covering the entire cavern, the brothers don't feel her energy pulsing through the connection that Envy is trying to form.

The half-demon is surprised at what he finds in his sister's mind.

" _ **You aren't Pride for no reason,**_ " he muses, using her own voice.

Jinx stares at the new source, surprised as well.

Raven blinks, and the room suddenly becomes incredibly still in the absence of her eyes.

When she opens them again, she's behind Envy.

He/she feels her, and spins around without so much as a thought spared to the ache in his/her forehead that has nothing to do with his/her many recent head traumas.

A grin splits his/her lips as he feels the power rushing through him/her, Raven's own thoughts of herself even more powerful than Jinx's had been.

His/her fist lashes out, aiming for where he/she assumes Raven's throat is.

It connects, and for a moment, he feels laughter bubbling up in his/her chest.

Then the pain strikes.

As one, the bones in his/her hand  _snap_ , and the pain vibrates through his/her entire arm.

Before he/she can scream out, something even harder than whatever had shattered his/her fingers slams into the center of his/her chest.

Smoke reaches his/her nose, and it takes him a second to realize that it's coming from where Hellfire burns his/her leotard.

" ** _Imitating a lie will get you no true power_** ," Raven muses.

Envy-Raven shivers as her voice echoes in the otherwise silent cave, the movement making his/her pain even worse.

A gasp leaves his/her as fingers clamp onto his/her throat, the strength crushing his/her windpipe the next second.

Her form leeches off of his body as he dies, his skin turning a pale shade of brown as he hits the rocks.

" _ **Far quicker than you deserve for hurting her**_ ," Raven growls as his carcass sinks limply to the floor.

" _ **H-hang on! We'll do whatever you say, Pride. Don't kill us**_ ," Gluttony begs.

Raven sneers, the expression unseen in the blackness.

" _ **What were you going to do to my love, exactly, again?**_ "

Gluttony audibly gulps, his nervous laugh sounding incredibly weak.

" _ **I-I-I w-was j-just f-fooling around. Pride**_ ," he mumbles.

" _ **Frankly, I was just keeping you out of the way. I couldn't care less if the gate opens, one way or the other. You leave me alone and you never hear from me again**_ ," Sloth offers.

He is far less afraid than Gluttony, if his steady voice is anything to go by, though Raven thinks that he's simply too lazy to find the energy to be afraid.

A dark, ugly part of her revels in the idea of seeing if she could change that.

She lets that part rule for the moment, her body shifting through dimensions until she stands at Sloth's back.

Her anger burns hot, overriding the effect he has.

Sloth gasps as a hand clamps onto his shoulder, mimicking his own action.

Raven lets her empathic barrier down, unleashing a wave of energy directly into him.

The Pride takes hold instantly, before Sloth can even think to run away.

" _ **I was quite impressed with how well you can relax,**_ " Raven offers.

Even in the darkness, she can feel the laughter rumbling through her all-but-possessed brother.

" _ **Nobody does it better**_."

" _ **Show me**_ ," she commands harshly.

The next second, he drops to the ground.

She feels her hold weakening as his mind slips away, the lethargy completely overtaking him until thought itself becomes too burdensome a task.

Gluttony suddenly materializes at her side, his hand clamping down on her arm.

" _ **I'm going to take you with me!**_ " he bellows.

The next second, Raven's power is being dragged through her skin like a straw.

Gluttony grins a fanged Cheshire smile as he slowly but surely drains everything that makes Raven's being up.

Her energy floods his senses, acting like ambrosia as he savors the flavor and depth of it.

Like a stabbed balloon, her body begins to deflate until only bones remain.

As soon as her body breaks down, the cave loses its darkness.

Gluttony grins down at the remains of his sister.

While delicious, she had been less filling than expected.

Jinx stares at the bones, her mouth hanging open as she tries to comprehend what she's seeing.

Gluttony stands over Sloth, who stares blankly into the air.

Raven's cloak is wrapped loosely around a pile of bones on the ground at Gluttony's side.

For a moment, her mind is too caught up in the horror of the sight to notice Raven's still-present energy.

Gluttony hears her gasping for breath, and grins at her.

" _ **She wasn't as strong as I thought. Given how easily she fell for Jack's ability while you were killing us, you might actually be stronger. Either way, we'll find out when I know how filling you are,**_ " he laughs.

Despite the pain wracking through her from head to toes, Jinx plants her good arm on the ground and forces herself into a stand.

Her broken leg is bent at a sickening angle, but she barely manages to stay up and not worsen the break.

Anger gives her eyes a brilliant glow, and hex magic crackles violently in the air around her.

As Gluttony watches, the air and ground warps around her.

"You're dead," she swears.

Her voice is hollow and weak, but she pays it no mind.

" _ **If you could walk normally, maybe you could back that up. I'm betting that a good wind could knock you on your ass, though**_."

"Maybe so. But I can see you coming. Go ahead. Come and eat me. I'll overload you with so much chaos magic while I go down that you won't have a nervous system left to heal," she snarls.

He eyes her warily, really noticing the power she's releasing for the first time.

" _ **Chaos magic and demons are great together. It should make for a great spice.**_ "

"But you're only half-demon. C'mon, what're you waiting for!? Let's test out if you've got the stomach to handle everything I can throw out!"

As she says it, the ground around her explodes, and cracks zig and zag through the rocks towards him.

She hopes he doesn't see the way her entire body is drenched in sweat, or the way her every muscle is violently shaking.

Somehow, he seems distracted enough to miss the clues that she's nearly dead already.

And that distraction is his final mistake.

Darkness swirls behind him, and before he can turn, a black claw latches on to the back of his head.

" _ **I picked up a new trick while in Envy's mind**_ ," Raven snarls.

His eyes widen with fright as his body suddenly ages, his entire stature turning hunched and decrepit in the span of a second.

As he falls to his suddenly arthritic and wobbly knees, Gluttony stares through the hand at Raven's glaring form.

" ** _Between Envy and Sloth's abilities, affecting human energy potential is pretty simple. And much as you all love Trigon's blood, you_ are  _still at least half human_** ," Raven sneers.

Gluttony's mouth flaps uselessly as he stares into her burning glare.

" ** _Someone seems to be missing_** ," she muses.

He frowns in confusion.

His brain works slower than usual, but he eventually manages to send a look around the cavern.

The Sons of Trigon lay in various states of death around the room.

Except for one.

He turns a questioning gaze towards his sister, his eyes almost comically wide.

" _ **W-Where's Envy**_?"

Raven's expression is Arctic as she simply nudges her head at the pile of bones.

" _ **W-well, that explains why it wasn't overly filling**_ ," he chokes out.

" ** _Being completely honest, I came here today looking to savor finally being done with this whole family just as much as I wanted to make sure you didn't succeed_** _ **. Now, I just want this over with,**_ " Raven hisses.

He feels the last of his energy vanishing into the aether, his legs turning to dust before his eyes.

" _ **Pride really is the strongest sin**_ ," he muses.

" _ **My name is**_ **Raven** _ **. Rather than me being Pride, I happen to hold domain over that power, because I'm naturally stronger than you all. You losing was just a natural conclusion**_."

His retort is cut off as his jaw turns to dust, and finally, he vanishes altogether.

Raven stares unseeingly down at the clothes for a moment, the enormity of being the last of Trigon's family settling over her.

She blinks rapidly, and with a jerk of her head, pushes the thought aside.

Jinx's labored breathing and painful thud of a landing on the ground more than works for pulling her out of her own thoughts.

The meta stares up at her when she joins her the next second, both of their faces drenched in blood.

"We won," Jinx mumbles around a grin.

The red leaves Raven's skin, revealing her pale and thoroughly exhausted body, now only covered in a torn white leotard.

"You won," she corrects. "I was taking a nap while you were fighting for your life."

The guilt hits her hard, and Raven blinks back tears as she lays a hand on Jinx's shoulder.

The ripped shirt allows for her to touch Jinx directly, and she finds the skin distressingly cool to the touch.

"The… guy almost… put… me to sleep… just… from talking," Jinx responds around panting breaths. "No… blame here."

"All the same,  _I_ blame me. You're so hurt…"

"Heh… yeah, not gonna' lie. This sucks… Lost a lot of blood…"

"I'm going to fix you right up. I'm  _so_ sorry about what you're about to feel."

Despite the pain, Jinx's grin grows.

"Fix now… listen to… bitching over pain… when we're in Maui," she gasps.

With a nod, Raven lets her aura expand.

Jinx's entire body coils as soon as her wounds begin healing.

The gash going from the top of her shoulder to the edge of her breast is the least painful mend.

Agony hisses between clamped teeth for what feels like an eternity.

Raven finds herself seriously worrying over causing the meta to go into seizures when she starts on her leg.

Her entire body arcs as the joint begins to mend, and through their link, Raven feels every bit of pain that registers to Jinx's mind.

Footsteps sound behind her, and Raven bites her lip hard enough to draw blood.

The motion prevents the instinctive, very demonic snarl that wants to rip its way free from her at the perceived threat.

Doctor Fate stands beside her just as she begins working on the gash in Jinx's side.

Tears pour out of her as she tries to work on the wound, finding it far deeper than even grotesque appearances would suggest.

"I… I can't heal fatal injuries," she murmurs.

Jinx's eyes widen, and the half-demon begins shaking at the glazed look to her eyes.

"Is… Is it really… that bad?"

Raven silently nods, her brow creasing as she continues pouring magic into the wound.

She becomes even paler as she drains herself, only for the wound to remain open.

Her tears vanish, then, and her eyes burn with determination.

"You can't die here, Jinx."

Even in her state, Jinx finds herself alarmed at the tone of her girlfriend's voice.

"Raven-"

Raven's eyes turn black, and she spreads her arms until a hand rests on both sides of Jinx's stomach.

"Azarath Metrion  _Zinthos_!"

Jinx and Fate both watch as darkness spreads over her arms, and the blue light of her healing magic vanishes.

Soon, the darkness spreads to cover them both in their entirety, and Raven's magic slips inside the wound.

Jinx's mouth falls open as a new wave of excruciating pain floods her, the agony making her miss the black that briefly washes through her aura.

And then, she feels her insides being slowly and painfully knitted back together, before the hole is sealed off.

The magic finally stops flowing, and Raven falls in a limp pile next to Jinx's gasping, sweat-drenched form.

"R-Raven?" she whispers.

"I'm… alive," she assures between gasps.

Jinx relaxes at that, truly unsure until she'd spoken.

"That was risky," Doctor Fate muses, sounding very unhappy.

She turns an eye up toward him, her lip curling weakly.

"What… did I have… to lose? We both… would've died… without… doing it."

"What did you do?" Jinx asks in sudden fear.

"Healing… wasn't going to work."

Raven's eyes slip closed, and she takes a deep breath to slow her hammering heart.

When they open again, she is steadier, though her entire body is still vibrating with tremors.

"But you healed me."

"No she didn't," Fate responds.

Jinx blinks in surprise, practically feeling the glare from behind his mask.

"But… I'm not dead."

"You healed you," Raven explains.

"I have a helluva metabolism, but I don't heal like that," the meta retorts with growing confusion.

"I locally gave you a portion of soul-self. Your body absorbed it, as expected given our link, and it made it so your body could mend itself, as mine does."

"O-kay… Why is this a bad thing? I feel like this is a bad thing for some reason," she asks Fate.

"If she'd thrown too much soul-self in to be absorbed, in her condition, she could've ceased to exist."

"Raven, what the-"

"I calculated for it. If it were anyone else, I wouldn't have even attempted it, but you're able to take in my aura. I didn't have to use too much energy," Raven assures.

"Try standing," Fate responds coolly.

"I just expanded my soul-self along this entire cave. I'd be close to passing out one way or the other, anyway," she defends.

"So I guess this kinda' screws up our vacation plans," Jinx bemoans.

Raven snorts in response, her hand reaching out to grab her fiancé's.

"For what it's worth, I doubt you'd be able to follow through on your plans, anyway," Fate offers, drawing their gazes to him.

With a slight nod of his head, he indicates the rubble covering the cavern.

Raven's eyes narrow as she finds the suspiciously her-shaped hole in the nearby wall, and the pile of rocks covering her planned escape.

"I don't know which hole you were planning on escaping through, but with Gluttony keeping me from sealing the cave, it's highly probable that the fight has covered it, wherever it was."

"Damnit," Jinx groans.

Something presses on Raven's mind, and her eyes move to the roof of the cave.

She feels something coming, and whatever it is sets her blood on fire.

The others stare at her as a whimper escapes her, and agony racks her body as it squirms against her will.

"Rae?"

Fate's eyes move to the roof, then, his golden aura expanding somewhat.

"This is going to be a very…  _unpleasant_ … experience," he muses.

"I don't think I can fight them," Raven rasps, barely holding on to her consciousness.

"Fight who? Raven, what's happening?" Jinx demands, her own senses picking up on nothing.

Her eyes widen in alarm as Raven's eyes slip closed, her body immediately going limp.

"Raven!? Doctor Fate, I thought she said she didn't-"

"She's not passed out because of her lack of energy. Can you stand?"

"Why'd she black out, then? And what the hell's happening?" she demanded, wincing at the rising panic in her voice.

"Angels are coming," Fate states, in explanation to both questions.

Any question Jinx would have asked is interrupted by a loud explosion, and dust rushes down into the cave around a massive column of light…

…

 _Author's Notes_ :

Kraśa- Hindi: "crush"

I had a blast with this fight in its entirety, as I hope you readers do.

Certainly more than Jinx and Raven, anyway. They just can't seem to catch a break. Though the Sons of Trigon did mention that there were angels right on their trail, so they might have done better to be paying attention to that.

We're down to only 1 chapter left, and I hope you're all thoroughly enjoying yourself as the story reaches its end. See you all next time!


	61. Epilogue

# LX. Epilogue

_Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based._

Jinx's jaw hangs loosely open as light turns into a solid form.

Part of the column shifts on the ground, becoming more and more humanoid with every step it somehow takes away from the entire shaft.

As soon as the humanoid figure completely separates from the column, the light stretches like pulled rubber.

The next second, a man is walking towards them.

A very tall, very bronze man.

Jinx isn't entirely sure which feature to be more terrified of.

His body is at taller than Mammoth's, and only half as wide.

Despite the difference in mass, golden skin reveals that he has muscles making up every bit of him that she can see past the solid, shining silver armor adorning his body.

Four wings are furled at his back, each of them seeming like they'd have a wingspan twice his height.

The air bends around him as he walks, his aura seeming to suck the power out of the cavern itself.

Her assessment is only strengthened when he passes by the pit, and its magical glow dims significantly.

Despite the display, the sword is somehow more intimidating.

His hand is wrapped around a long, thin piece of steel, ending in a spiked and jagged black hilt.

A ruby glints in the pommel, seeming to cast a bloody light around him as he walks.

The blade itself is a mass of flickering, blue flames, and the closer he gets to them, the hotter Jinx finds herself feeling.

And then, he suddenly comes to a step several meters away from them, glaring imperiously at first Jinx, then her unconscious lover, and back again.

She doesn't understand what's stopping the walking death from simply killing them, as he so clearly wants to do.

Until the shaft of light pulses, and she feels her heart suddenly hammering in her chest.

Only when the fifth angel has taken form and walked to the first one's side does the shaft of light vanish.

As she stares at the creatures, she finds herself remembering one of Raven's moments of slipping into a deep-seated inner mythology buff on her.

She'd once told her that in comparison, angels and demons were so similar in nature that the average person wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

The power washing over her, though, makes her think that for once, her lover had been wrong.

Angels, at least the ones in front of her, give off a far more brutal and dangerous air, and she fights the urge to look at their auras lest she go insane.

Jinx finds a soul-deep terror running through her, a primal, animalistic voice in the back of her mind screaming to run.

If not for Raven being defenseless at her side, she's pretty sure she'd throw every last bit of her remaining power into smashing through one of the walls and doing just that.

Luckily, she's saved from having to find out, as Doctor Fate suddenly materializes between the women and angels.

" **Your business here is settled**."

Jinx shivers as Nabu's voice washes over her, but somehow, the Lord of Order's power is far less painful when compared to the angels'.

The angels look at him, seeming perfectly unimpressed.

" _The key_ ," a high-pitched, breathy voice demands.

Jinx whimpers, the sound coming from inside her own head and creating a burning headache the second she hears it.

" **Your presence has knocked unconscious the one who holds the key, and unfortunately, you will need to await her return to consciousness to retrieve it** ," Fate returns.

At that, the angels look at Raven as one, all of them sneering down at the bloodied half-demon.

" _There will be no need for that_ ," one of the angels assures, this voice slightly deeper in tone.

" **I assure you, it is necessary. You cannot enter her pocket dimension, keyed to her alone, unless she allows it.** "

" _And if the minor god of her own realm dies, then that realm will collapse, and all contents within it will be released to the near area. On a scale of a small pocket dimension, it's hardly a concern_ ," the voice sneers again.

Jinx's eyes widen as the angel closest to them turns their way, and brings his flaming sword high into the air.

There's no thought in the meta's mind.

One moment, she watches the angel's sword approaching her lover, and the next, a column of rock and bedstone is connecting the roof to the floor.

Jinx blinks at the sight of the angel, an old and charred sword lying at his feet where he's pressed unconscious to the ground.

Thick, golden blood leaks out from the angel's pierced body, collecting in the rocks.

Her eyes droop as the energy loss catches up to her, but the sight of four angels glaring at her helps to stave off the exhaustion.

She forces herself, wobbling and trembling the entire way, to her feet.

"A-anyo-one else th-think th-that's the r-right way to go ab-bout this?" she demands between gasping, whimpering breaths.

The angels seem utterly unimpressed with the way her lower body visibly vibrates, or the way her vibrant pink eyes are dimmed to nearly being grey.

" **Jinx** -"

"You… ungrateful p-pieces of shit!" she snarls, oblivious to Fate's warning. "She…  _we_  d-did your goddamn d-dirty w-w-work f-for you a-after you all screwed this up, a-and yo-you think h-her reward i-is to just kill her… while s-she ca-can't even fight back!?"

The oxygen taken for her speech leaves her vision grey and spotted, but Jinx refuses to fall until she doesn't have a choice anymore.

She doesn't see the angel move.

All she knows is that the next second, her cheek explodes with pain, and her body is bouncing off a rock wall.

She finds herself on her back before what happened catches up with her brain.

By the time she recognizes that her jaw has been cracked by an angel's fist, the same angel that hit her is standing over her with a sword poised to stab.

He barely makes the beginnings of his motion to end her life, and possibly her very soul, given what he is.

Golden light engulfs his body, and he levitates off the ground.

The glow spreads and becomes a brilliant ankh, and the angel finds he can't move a finger to resist as his body is slammed into the column Jinx had raised.

Fate stands tall where he'd been, a single hand raised and golden fire rising from the eye holes of Nabu's helmet.

" **Cease this _at once_.** "

The statement is calm, and relatively tame.

From the expressions on the angel's faces, though, Nabu may as well have rammed a fist through their stomachs.

" _We will not leave without the key_."

" **You will do as your elder says you will. Has the Host of Heaven truly fallen this far, to attack a defenseless woman and her nearly unconscious protector?** "

" _I see no defenseless woman. Only a demon's continued lineage, surrounded by her own kin, killed by her and the so-called protector. We will not allow her to hold the key for a single moment longer_."

" **If I need to draw Michael's attention to overrule your opinion, if this cannot be resolved without you killing the Roths, do not think for a single moment that I will not do so** ," Fate warns.

The angels wince again, and Jinx feels her lips curling into a grin at the sight.

" _You are not our elder, insolent human, and you have no such authority,_ " an angel hisses.

" **This human is the avatar to Nabu, and your master made my species to govern Order. You creatures are no exception to that domain. Only the Endless and He are exempt, and even the Endless have been known to reach our laws' parameters.** "

The mention of the Endless widens Jinx's grin, and she weakly points at the angels before her arm flops weakly to the ground again.

"T-tha's wight... We… ain't on Death's wist," she slurs before the pain sends her into more quiet whimpers.

"Not yet, anyway."

Everyone standing, even Fate, visibly jumps at the new voice.

For her part, Jinx lets her eyes slip closed, entirely incapable of resisting the influence of all the magic in the room anymore, with the newcomer.

Death watches as Jinx turns limp, her labored breathing evening out as blackness rises through her aura like a comforting embrace.

She has no smile on her lips as she stares at the angels, her previous lightheartedness gone.

"This cavern is going to collapse sometime in the next five minutes. Even you won't make it under that," she tells the angels as she moves forward.

The angels gape at her, the cold power radiating from her nearly driving them to their knees.

She flicks her wrist, and a small computer appears from the air.

Her eyes move around the room, and she nods to herself as she traces a finger across the screen.

Each swipe draws a line across the text, crossing off the names of the Sons of Trigon as she goes.

"Human technology  _has_ improved some things," she muses as she slides through the entries on screen.

" _W-what are you-_ "

"I'm here to make sure I ferry those who need ferrying."

She inclines her head to the slovenly, snoring half-demon nearby, a brow rising.

"Huh. More merciless than I thought," she murmurs before turning her attention back to the cowering angels. "You want to know how I know that you all are going to go back now?"

" _H-how_?"

"Your names are pretty low on my list. If you were meant to kill Raven for the key, as I suspect you or your commander thinks you are, you would be significantly higher."

She nods at Doctor Fate, who stands ramrod straight and utterly silent.

"He would jump you significantly up my list if it happened, under Nabu's influence. And what, do you think, it means if a Lord of Order deals with you?"

" _The banished would be an agent of Chaos._ "

" _Very good_ ," she coos, with shocking condescension. "And what would that mean, then, if killing Raven and Nicole Diaz would incur that response?"

" _They are aligned with the Lords of Order?_ "

"Yes, well, nearly killing herself to keep the universe in its status quo would certainly suggest that, wouldn't it?"

She gives her list one more look before nodding.

It vanishes into smoke, and she walks over to Raven's side, not a sound rising from where her feet meet rock.

Her mouth moves rapidly, and the angels cringe at the guttural sounds that brush like razors against their minds.

By the end of the incomprehensible statement, her hand glows black.

Raven's body arcs off the ground, her spine nearly bending into a 'u' as Death's hand flits back and forth as though in search of something.

And then, Death's hand loses its coloration, and Raven sags back to the ground, pouring copious amounts of sweat.

The angels gape at the sight of the key in her palm, seeming somehow less pale than her skin tone.

" **That could have caused a great deal of damage** ," Nabu muses, breaking the silence.

"Not enough to put her any higher on my list than the last few weeks have already done," she retorts flippantly.

One of the angels steps forward as though to grab the key, and she quickly pulls her hand to her side.

"First, the terms."

The angels stare at her in confusion, but Fate violently jerks.

Then the angels feel it, and all of them drop to their knees at the magic pulsing in the air.

Death looks into empty air, barely twitching at the energy playing across her mind.

"They did work for you. Their death is  _not_ the way for this to end for them in repayment."

She frowns at something the others can't hear, shaking her head slightly.

"Of course I wouldn't wish them untouchable. Everyone has their time. Their times have been artificially sped up, though, and while not overly bright, what the metahuman said isn't incorrect. This whole situation  _is_  our fault. Lucifer's, Dream's, Duma and Ramiel's, and a number of others all made it possible to take decades off of what was originally a timespan most humans can't comprehend dedicated to fighting for balance."

A cold sensation brushes against Fate's soul, then, and he nearly drops to his knees.

Somehow, the sensation takes on a question, no voice needing to air it for the mystic to grasp what the inquiry is.

"Despite my moniker, I am  _not_ Destiny," he explains, leaving the angels even more baffled at the sudden change in his voice. "I cannot say for certain how everything will end with them, in this reality. They both have more than earned something in return, though. You know, I'm sure, that Raven is capable of passing through the Wall. If she didn't have a vested interest in protecting  _this_ world, and  _this_ dimension's set of people, she could have simply taken her betrothed and jumped to another universe."

The sensation rises again, though it has less effect on Fate this time.

"Maybe. Certainly, there are other heroes who may have risen in their stead if they hadn't been here. But without their aid, it wouldn't have led to here, now, with her brothers incapable of attempting this all again, and there would certainly have been more souls for Death to ferry than this entire ordeal has given her. The possibilities and other outcomes have nothing to do with  _this_ outcome, nor their hand in it."

"I'm not asking for a reset," Death chimes in. "Their heroics and deeds outside of this situation would still have put them higher on my list than the average creature, even if Raven's is balanced by her demonic nature. But I had a look-see, using Destiny's help, into the variables. In comparison to the universes that are similar, but deviated with them simply walking away, my list has them higher by nearly three hundred percent on the list. That's on us, specifically."

"They've had their time taken from them. Nicole's time is more precious a commodity than Raven's, surely, but in the end, even her near immortality has been decreased significantly as a result of this situation," Fate adds.

Death's head cants to the side, her eyes slipping slightly closed as she feels the Presence's input once more.

She nods, then, and the air turns frigid in an instant, ice forming along the entire cavern.

The angels watch as the key to the Hellmouth vanishes in a burst of thick, oily black smoke.

As the smoke evaporates, Death's eyes turn to pure light, forcing everyone to look away lest they have their minds burned to ash.

The same strange, incomprehensible language flows from Death's mouth, and her footsteps on the icy rock as she moves to the women goes entirely unheard in comparison.

And then, the cavern goes silent, and the angels look over only to find all three women gone from the room…  
...

Jinx jerks violently awake, her heart crashing against her ribs.

Her muscles scream in protest, drawing a whimper through clenched teeth.

Even as she notices it, though, the pain in its entirety vanishes, leaving her shaky but otherwise fine.

A hand moves through her hair, and she barely resists jumping as she takes up the scene around her.

She's in an unfamiliar room, with disturbingly bright walls and a massive, golden-framed window.

The thick curtains covering most of said window doesn't make a dent in the pure white of the walls, the sight already giving her a headache.

Pulling her attention away from the strange wall reveals an uncanny sense of softness beneath her, as though clouds are trying to assimilate her.

Frowning in confusion, she looks down to find the largest bed she's ever seen under her.

She notices while examining it a long leg made of skin slightly less pale than her own.

Memories come flooding back, and she lunges.

Raven makes an undignified sound as the meta throws herself to the side, wrapping her arms tightly around her neck.

She runs a hand down Jinx's back in soothing circles as she stares to her own side.

Jinx doesn't see the raised brow, nor the blush on her cheeks, with her own head buried against her chest.

Death's lips curl in amusement at the display from where she leans against the nearby wall.

"Two weeks?" she asks, surprising Jinx out of her relief.

"Give or take a few human days," Death responds with a slight nod. "Enjoy your officially deceased status while you can."

Jinx's head jerks up, finally noticing their guest with a blush of her own.

"And the key?"

"Safer than before, and we're taking steps to make sure that it doesn't get captured again."

"Something I'll be sure to suggest happens to all the relics that made this entire ordeal possible, when we're discovered again," the demonling mutters.

"Yeah, that should probably be a conversation that should take place," Death agrees.

"And what…"

She licks her lips, suddenly looking unsure of her question.

Death seems to understand regardless, however.

"They're not coming back. They went into it with weakened souls, and Nicole broke what was remaining of her two kills. If she hadn't, their efforts would have killed them in exchange for the gate opening. Passed out as you were, you took the last two to die in, and even then, they stood no chance of taking over. Your brother Sloth is still alive, but there's no longer a soul in that vessel of his, so if you ever see him again, it's probably some lucky spirit that happened on him."

"Then… it's really over," Raven murmurs, her voice strangely hollow.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far. This specific situation, sure, but if you had no good left to do, my intervention would have changed nothing."

"As long as angels stay the fuck away from us, I couldn't care less," Jinx hisses.

"My father agrees."

Jinx's heart skips a beat, her eyes going shock-wide as she stares uncomprehendingly at Death.

"Y-your f-father? As in… Like, there's actually-"

"I'd always been under the impression that he strictly maintains a policy of non-intervention," Raven adds, allowing Jinx to compose herself.

"He does. We do. This instance is a very, very rare exception. There were a great deal of factors involved, but it comes down to our side screwing up. We nearly caused the balance to shatter entirely. With a lot of help along the way, you two stopped it, at least in this reality. We might try to stay uninvolved, but we'd caused decades of time to be lost, and that couldn't stand if we wanted to really fix the imbalance."

" _Had_ caused?" Raven asks, her own eyes widening in surprise.

"I made a deal on your behalf. You're not immortal, and you don't get immunity that some souls have been afforded from my list, but we gave back the time we caused you to lose. As far as the list's concerned, you never took chunks out of your souls on our behalf."

"Hence why we're capable of doing more than writhing in a hospital bed right now," Raven guesses, a hint of wonder creeping into her voice.

"Nuh-uh. That was all you two," Death corrects. "I just got permission to return the life energy you'd lost. Everything else was the doing of your own link."

"You, uh, wouldn't happen to have any idea on that, would ya'? Souls bein' your thing, and all?" Jinx inquires in the ensuing silence.

"Of course. Why spoil it, though? You two have the benefit of not having omnipotence. Why ask for the answers to those kinds of things when you can enjoy being surprised later?"

"Well, when you put it like that," Jinx mutters.

"I believe that settles everything between us, then," Raven adds.

"For now," Death corrects. "We'll be meeting again."

"Hopefully not in any official capacity for quite some time," the demonling muses.

Grinning, Death shrugs at them.

The room briefly turns cold, and then, the couple is alone.

"Well that worked out," Jinx quips.

Grinning, Raven turns to fully face the meta, her red eyes alight with positive emotion.

Both women know that there will be more battles.

Two weeks is all the time they have before someone finds them, and drags them back into a life of fighting.

Awaiting their return is a laundry list of species and organizations looking to collect the blood owed over the year-long case.

But for now, both women force it out of their minds as they leave the strange room, and find themselves standing on an expanse of beautiful, white sand and crystalline water as far as their eyes can see, together, and enjoying only each other's company for the near future.

As they run towards the shore, they both let themselves begin to plan on how best to use their borrowed time, while they can…  
...

 _Author's Notes_ :

And that is that, everyone. Finishing stories, I've found, has always been the most challenging part of my writing process. As it goes, though, I think this one works well.

It's been a very fun ride writing this story, and despite some admitted pacing issues, I think it came out fantastically, as I hope you all do, as well! I think I'll be taking a break from fanfiction writing for a bit after this is uploaded, because this taught me that if I sit down and just write, even once a week, I can come up with a full novel, very quickly. At 207,500+ words without counting notes, this is more than qualified as such, and I want to see what I can do with the multiple story ideas for entirely original fiction I have lying around my computer if I apply the same philosophy to them.

Also, a few people were curious what my title had to do with anything. Encroach means to intrude on, or to advance gradually beyond usual or acceptable limits. From the start, the title was what came to mind when I was plotting out how Raven's character would develop through the story, and it fit well, by the end.


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